Alice Through the Looking Glass *** (2016, Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifans, Lindsay Duncan, Ed Speleers) – Movie Review

Most of the original cast are back for this belated Disney sequel to Tim Burton’s 2010 box-office hit Alice in Wonderland. But this time James Bobin is the director, and Burton is a producer, though the mildly appealing result is much the same thing as before. Added to the mix is Sacha Baron Cohen’s Time and Rhys Ifans’s Zanik Hightopp, both actors enjoying themselves, not to say indulging themselves, extravagantly.

Linda Woolverton again provides the screenplay, credited as based on characters by Lewis Carroll, not the book or books. Interesting that. Woolverton doesn’t have a particularly riveting tale to tell, or rather two tales to tell, neither of them very interesting.

In the real world, the now 20something Alice, again played pluckily by Mia Wasikowska, is having trouble with the nasty bloke she turned down, who has married someone else but fancies giving Alice and her mother Mrs Kingsleigh (Lindsay Duncan) a hard time by wanting to take over the mum’s house and Alice’s ship and make her subservient to him as a clerk in his business.

In the fantasy world, Alice jumps up on the mantelpiece and nips Through the Looking Glass (oddly enough) and finds she must travel through a new world to retrieve a magical sceptre to stop the evil lord Time before he turns forward the clock and turns Wonderland into a barren world. Oh, and she must also stop a plot to put the wicked Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) back on the throne. With me so far? To be fair, screen-writer Woolverton makes this nonsense story clear, if nothing more than that – nonsense. Isn’t the now 20something Alice a bit old to be having Mad Hatter fantasies? No, say Disney, we’re never to old for sweet tweedledumb fantasy.

The British actors do their very darned best for the movie, as always. Cohen and Ifans are two of the screen’s least likeable performers, but they are well cast and well used here, and very useful. They have a lot to do and liven it up a lot.

Depp is creepy weird and fey as the Mad Hatter, and he gets sole top billing over the title, even though the film’s script has a modern (non-Victorian) feminist dynamism. That’s bad payback for Woolverton and her girl power screenplay and for Wasikowska, who is again commendably intense and feisty if not particularly winsome as the go-getting heroine.

Hitting just the right camp notes, Bonham Carter is fun all over again as the evil queen, though Anne Hathaway struggles to engage in the admittedly dull role of the White Queen. And (in the real world segments) Duncan scores well in a nice part as Alice’s mum, with Ed Speleers just about able to find room to be charming as nice bloke James Harcourt.

Just like in 2010, there’s an impeccable production, so the movie certainly looks glorious. Asking for more, some real substance and genuine passion and feeling, would be very Oliver Twist of me, wouldn’t it?

Among the vocal cast, Alan Rickman again, very briefly, provides the voice of the Blue Caterpillar, now a Butterfly. It is his final film and dedicated to him. RIP Alan Rickman. Adieu dear departed.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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