Alice Through The Looking Glass Review

"Tick-tock. Your time is up."


Alice Through the Looking Glass is a sequel to Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland. The film was directed by James Bobin and has a very strong talented cast that returns from the original film, for example Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Alan Rickman and introduces Sacha Baron Cohen as the character called Time (yeah literally time itself!)

Lets just start of by saying that I was really disappointed with this film, I really enjoyed the classic Disney version and of course Tim Burton's adaption of Alice in Wonderland but I was very disappointed with this film. That aside there are still some aspects of the film that I enjoyed, for example I enjoyed the visuals of Times palace and the master clock which the film is centered around (I won't spoil what is inside the master clock), the design of the clock was really good and the film introduced some really interesting aspects of representing time for example characters life's being represented as an old pocket watch, which was visually impressive. I also liked how the James Bobin was able to transfer elements of Tim Burtons version into his film but add an extra level and depth to the world that Burton created in the first film even if some elements were not as successful as others I still felt it was good to follow Burtons footsteps (who wouldn't!!) and add an extra level whilst keeping the quirkiness alive.

On the other hand there were many aspects of the film that I did not personally enjoy (you might like it) for example I felt like most of the returning cast from Burtons film felt really useless in this film, some of the characters really didn't add anything to the story for me and seemed just to be there for the sake of it, this could be down to the fact that the films narrative focused around Alice and the Mad Hatter, but still they could have integrated the other character's better into the film. I also felt that most of the comedic elements of the film really didn't work and felt forced into the story for unnecessary purposes and some jokes even felt awkward and really took my attention out of the film, I'm not really sure what they were going for with the comedic elements of the film and would of much preferred some of the jokes removed (it would of improved some scenes trust me). I also felt like some of the visuals in some places could of been a bit sharper as in some scenes you could clearly see the use of CGI and looked less natural and more awkward then anything. Another thing to point out would be the fact that for me this film dragged a lot, a lot of the scenes felt like they could of been cut down a little but I think that's mainly down to some of awkward unnecessary comedic elements that for me did not work.

Overall I think that you should skip this film, I mean for those of you who really liked Tim Burton's version you might enjoy this film, but I don't honestly think that you should set your expectations very high at all.

Verdict: 2 out of 5 stars