The long-awaited sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland has finally been released; featuring all the stars of the first movie and the new addition of Sacha Baron Cohen as the personification of Time, this follow-up deviates from the Caroll-canon in favour of a brand new adventure.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvGUW-vsLE&w=740&h=422]
The sequel follows Alice as she is once again pulled into Wonderland to aid her other-worldly friends, specifically the Hatter, at the end of the Queen of Hearts’ destructive regime. The evil queen in question has since joined forces with Time in his clockwork palace where he guards the essential elements of time itself – life, death, and the past.
Who is the film for?
Though the first film had a family-oriented yet diversely accessible feel to it, this latter edition seems more tailored towards children with slapstick humour taking a forefront. This by no means makes the film unenjoyable for older audiences, as the sequel was not lacking in plot nor character development. The main difference between the two films that leads to this ‘lack of magic’ feeling is that this sequel lacks the ability to build towards the climax, which in turn makes it difficult for the viewer to engage with the story, as the adventure has been dulled. Whereas in the first film there was a steady pace that built towards the climax with the characters’ personalities and relationships building up for the peak in action, Alice Through The Looking Glass throws the viewer into the deep end from the moment Alice enters Wonderland, and the peak in action seems to come from nowhere. Similar to the first film, however, there are layers of complicating actions which keep the story interesting and fast-paced enough to maintain interest from start to finish.
No damage done to the space-time continuum.
The feature that most potential viewers are probably concerned about is the addition of time travel, as this has been the downfall of many films and television series’. Thankfully, the time travel element is not overcomplicated or used in a manner which would change the history established in the film franchise; it has been well utilised within this film to add to characters’ personalities and adds multiple fun as well as dramatic scenes.
MY EYES.
A problem that I didn’t expect to encounter with this film was the CGI. The visual effects were not necessarily bad by any means, but the animation involved with creating the scenes of Wonderland were underwhelming and strangely like something from a film based on a Doctor Seuss storybook, almost sickly in their pastel design. Considering the vast influence Wonderland has had as an aesthetic concept, it seems a shame that more creative liberties were not taken with its design. The clearest example of dodgy CGI was the unwelcome addition of entirely animated robots, designed in a similar fashion to the moving objects in Beauty and the Beast, though this animation would presumably not be noticeably bad to the intended audience of children. Thankfully, more thought seems to have gone into costuming and makeup which was just as colourful and imaginative as in the first film.
The Verdict
The benefits of this original story are the that the film continues some of the new features established in the first film, such as Alice’s passion for sailing and her career as a sea captain in honour of her father. We also get to see how Alice’s difficult relationship with her mother develops in the wake of Alice in Wonderland, where she publicly humiliated the man she was supposed to marry by rejecting him in favour of pursuing a career, much to her mother’s chagrin.
The film overall was enjoyable and definitely had its humorous moments, though the chance of another sequel seems unlikely. It is hardly a film that viewers will rush to see again, but for those who enjoyed the first instalment, Alice Through The Looking Glass is still worth the watch.
Rating: 6/10
Words by Charlie Ginger Jones