It’s unclear if they’re being offered with any sincerity or conviction. As much as her script, and other aspects of the production, may gesture toward the bizarre and exotic, moreover, she cannot forgo inserting formulaic epigrams meant to convey salubrious life lessons. Screenwriter Linda Woolverton shapes Carroll’s diffuse second book into a relatively sophisticated and fairly lucid story, yet doesn’t adequately convey Carroll’s fascination with logic and wordplay. Anyone would come across stone-faced and emotively challenged next to this fey and feckless chap.Īdding to viewer fatigue, Depp keeps recycling the same character, with only minor variations, in film after film - not even counting his Hatter from this franchise’s original. Depp’s distractingly mannered Hatter - a creepily simpering, elaborately painted, infantile figure. Wasikowska’s most significant hurdle is appearing opposite Mr. Alice’s limited interaction with the animated creatures - voiced by the late Alan Rickman, Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry and Toby Jones, among others - doesn’t soften that impression and she’s a formidable presence alongside the seasoned actors playing her live-action adversaries, namely Bonham Carter and Cohen (who, forgive the pun, gets more screen time than his role warrants). Wasikowska is so adept at projecting stoicism, she keeps sympathy at bay. Nor is it satisfyingly warm and fuzzy, owing in large measure to the two lead performances.
Alice through the looking glass film online movie#
And so, while the movie has dark shadings, it’s not overtly macabre. Tim Burton serves as producer but has handed over directorial duties to James Bobin. When last seen, Alice is embarking on a career that combines seafaring and commerce. Without the aid of magic, she must find a way to protect her father’s legacy and ensure her mother’s welfare. Evidently, the latter’s enormous head and volatile temperament resulted from a traumatic brain injury, an event triggered by the surreptitious consumption of tarts.Īfter completing her task in Underland (and rousing the Hatter from his morbid depression), Alice re-emerges in Victorian London where she is promptly branded a hysteric and put in an insane asylum. In the course of discovering what happened to the Hatters, Alice learns what caused the rift between the White (Anne Hathaway) and Red (Helena Bonham Carter) Queens. Vowing to help Hatter find out precisely what befell his relations, Alice undertakes a dangerous mission that involves time travel and the pilfering of an essential device, the Chronosphere, from Time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen). Her pals are worried about the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who has grown increasingly despondent over reports that his estranged family was killed by the Jabberwocky. Upon returning to London, however - the year is 1875 - Alice learns that her former suitor, Lord Ascot (Leo Bill), owner of the rapacious shipping company for which she’s been plying the seas, will evict her mother from their home unless he can take possession of the “Wonder.”Īfter receiving this ultimatum at the Ascot residence, Alice passes through a mirror into Underland, where she reunites with a gaggle of friends that includes the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, as well as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The vessel, we learn, belonged to her late father.
In the swashbuckling opening scene, Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) is at the helm of a ship named “Wonder,” racing to elude pirates during a fierce storm. As for its suitability, there are enough frightening action sequences and examples of cruelty to render it inappropriate for young or impressionable children. It’s no wonder the resulting picture feels forced and mechanical.ĭespite exciting visuals, a talented ensemble, and glittery costume and makeup designs, this 3-D fantasy-adventure is inert - managing to feel audacious and tediously familiar at the same time. Viewed through a decidedly contemporary prism, presumably to satisfy a modern insistence on gender equality, she conforms to present-day social, political and cultural norms. More compelling in theory than in practice, the central figure in this follow-up to Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” (2010), does not contradict Carroll’s vision so much as supplant it. NEW YORK (CNS) - The heroine of “Alice Through the Looking Glass” (Disney) is not Lewis Carroll’s curious 7-year-old girl but rather an intrepid sea captain with an entrepreneurial streak.Ī young woman who refuses to bend to the will of a patriarchal society, Alice overcomes obstacles in both the real world and the fantasy realm of Underland thanks to her courage, empathy and appetite for risk.