Alice Through the Looking Glass review

[Westside Steve]

 

 

Alice Through the Looking Glass

 

Disney

 

PG. 113 min

 

 

 

 

Everybody knows Lewis Carroll was a strange guy at his books are even stranger. Those of us who came of age in the late sixties or early seventies probably wonder if there wasn't subversion of hallucinogenic recreational substances in his day.

 

Still I would imagine that every kid from 9 to 90 has some idea of the Alice Legends.

 

Personally I've never read any of the books and have very little idea what the story is, or was, about. Like everyone else I've seen cartoons heard short stories and seen all the goofy characters from Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to the Fumerious Bandersnatch.

 

Rumor has it that this version, the live-action film version, is a little more faithful to the books than previous incarnations. I don't know since I've never actually read them. If that's true, I had absolutely no idea of the underlying plot about Alice (Mia Wasikowska) being the captain of her father's ship and a financial battle between crotchety old English chauvinists. I do realize that this is the season of pandering to women so who knows?

 

As I said our heroine is the captain of a ship which has been to sea a lot longer than anyone expected. Upon returning she finds that the holding company, or whoever these guys are, have conned her mother into signing a contract to give up their share of the boat in order to save the family home.

 

Apparently sometime in the past Alice turned down a request from the loser in charge of this consortium for her hand in marriage and he's still pissed off.

 

After this confrontation at the rich assholes ball, our girl chases a butterfly through the mansion and winds up falling through, guess what, a Looking-Glass which transports her to a fantastic world inhabited by the strangest possible creatures. Here we also learn of the underpinnings of the feud between the White Queen and the Red Queen. (Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton's wife)

 

The hook here is that the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp)has actually become mad due to trauma when his parents were killed by a dragon or maybe the jabberwock. Alice runs into a half man half clock creature by the name of simply Time (Sasha Baron Cohen) and snags one of his instruments which enables her to travel in, (guess what) time.

 

She will have to do just that to go back to the spot when the Mad Hatter's family can be saved. Let me tell you friends, there is a great deal of traveling through time and through fantastic landscapes and among even more fantastic creatures.

 

May I say that whoever does the CGI work for the people at Walt Disney are among the best in the world. Whether it's Pixar animation or LOOKING GLASS, I am still amazed after all these years. And there are some extremely amazing examples all over the silver screen.

 

So we get to see a truly spectacular exhibit of effects and artistic brilliance, , all the time we are finding out a completely new story.

 

There is just one problem. Mainly this movie sucks. Yep, that's right, among all the splendor and glory the story itself is stupid the characters have very little charisma and even though the effects look great, thanks to director Tim Burton'a usual artistic vision they do sometimes tend to border on the creepy side. I have always felt that Burton focuses more on the visuals that he does the personalities.

 

None of the action seems to make a great deal of sense and even when it does it's not very exciting. I never understood the bond between the Hatter and Alice nor how saving the family was accomplished.

 

Johnny Depp in my opinion is a hit-or-miss actor. Sometimes he's great sometimes he turns in a performance that Keanu Reeves could have done. This is the latter. I know he channeled Keith Richard for Captain Jack Sparrow and Michael Jackson for Willy Wonka but I have no idea who he's imitating for the extremely annoying Hatter.

 

I just looked up some reviews scores and I see that for o ce the highly paid critics are in agreement with me even though audiences seem to hate it less than I did.

 

Again it's one of the most beautiful films I've seen but , it's absolutely devoid of fun or adventure.

 

It's possible that Mickey was out of the office that week and it was Goofy who green-lighted this turd.

 

 

D

 

 

WSS