Alice Through the Looking Glass

"You're you again!"

"Well, if I'm not, I wish I was."

Alice Kingsleigh (Wasikowska) returns home after a 3 year journey at sea.  Life at home has changed, her father's business partner has passed away and the company is now in the hands of her ex-fiance Hamish Ascot (Bill).  He wants Alice to turn her father's ship over to him, or lose her family home.  She is unwilling to part with either piece of her past and follows butterfly Absolem (Alan Rickman) through a mirror.

On the other side of the mirror, she is back in Underland.  She is greeted warmly by her friends, but they are concerned about Tarrant Hightopp, the Mad Hatter (Depp).  He is obsessed with the idea that his family, who died years before, are still alive.  No one, including Alice, believes him and he grows sicker by the minute.  Mirana of Marmoreal, the White Queen (Hathaway) believes the only way to save their friend is to change the past.  Alice is sent to Time (Baron Cohen) to borrow the Chronosphere to go back to the past.  Time refuses to help and says the past can't be changed.  She finds Iracebeth of Crims, the Red Queen (Bonham Carter), who also wants the sphere, so Alice steals it and sets out to save the Hatter.  Can you sets things right before all of Underland is destroyed?


In 2010 Tim Burton reimagined the Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.  Unlike the book, she is older and escaping from an unwanted engagement and she is there to save them.  For this sequel, Burton served as the producer and turned over directing duties to James Bobin.  The screenplay was again written by Linda Woolverton and the majority of the original cast returned for this film.

The film takes it's title from Carroll's second book about Alice, "Through the Looking Glass."  However, this film is not a direct adaptation of that book.  It takes the characters from Carroll's books and some of the ideas, but it is a mostly original story.

Once again it is up to Alice to save the day.  But unlike the first film, I really did not like Alice.  She is selfish and doesn't have much personality.  I enjoyed the first film, but this was ridiculous.  This film focuses more on the Mad Hatter character.  Johnny Depp is the main focus of the movie poster and movie.  It is interesting how over-the-top the Hatter looks and acts, and yet his family looks normal.  The only thing that the Hightopp family has in common is the red hair and the hatter profession.  You'd think they would at least try to make the a little more ridiculous looking to match the character they already have from the first film.

Time is interesting and Sacha Baron Cohen is a good choice for the role.  He is just weird enough to make it work.  Helena Bonham Carter is again over-the-top as the Red Queen.  The rest of the main cast returns for this film, with only the character of Dodo missing (as Michael Gough died a year after the first film was released).  The Jabberwocky appears, but does not speak (as his portrayer Christopher Lee died in 2015).  The film is dedicated to Alan Rickman, who died a few months before the film was released.

There were some good ideas, but overall I really hated this film.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) 113 minutes
Director: James Bobin
Starring: Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsleigh
Johnny Depp as Tarrant Hightopp
Helena Bonham Carter as Iracebeth of Crims
Anne Hathaway as Mirana of Marmoreal
Sacha Baron Cohen as Time
Rhys Ifans as Zanik Hightopp
Matt Lucas as Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Lindsay Duncan as Helen Kingsleigh
Leo Bill as Hamish Ascot