Alice Through The Looking Glass: Spoiler Free and Spoiler Review
Non-Spoiler Review
I don't know how to review this film. It's not horrible, but it's not spectacular either. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the film isn't one that's a must see. It's a great film, but it is not something that you need to see no matter what. All the characters have great parts, some more than others. There are some great messages at play in the film. The visuals are at some points great and some points funky. All the actors do an okay job playing their respected characters. The film has points of genuine humor, which made me laugh out loud. In full honesty, I am disappointed that the film got a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film isn't that bad, but it isn't the best film ever seen either. I guess if you really want to see this than go, it's worth your time, but don't feel like you need to. Also, when I reviewed Civil War I told you whether or not paying to see it in 3D. For this film, I don't believe it's necessary to pay the extra money. Alright now we can talk SPOILERS, because there is no other way to talk about the film without doing spoilers.
Spoiler Portion
Okay, to start off I am going to say that this is very much a time travel movie. It's all about traveling back in time to change the past of the main characters, who made mistakes in their past. Now we are going to go character by character sorted from their respected worlds.
Let's start with the characters from the real world.
Mia Wasikowska as Alice
I had mixed feelings about Alice this time around. On the one hand, she is a great, a perfect role model for girls. On the other hand, she was very hypercritical in some points. Considering that she doesn't like the word impossible, why would she say to The Hatter that his family being alive still is impossible? I mean why should she say that. I know she needed to learn a lesson, but I thought she would be a little bit understanding for him, considering they're in Wonderland and the impossible is impossible. Other than that, I felt that she was really determined to bring Hatter's family home. I liked that in the beginning she was a sea captain. She had a lot of great lines in the film. I loved her scenes with Time. Her costumes are amazing. They looked fantastic. She wasn't focused a lot in the ads, which was misleading, because she is the one, who has to go on the adventure and bring the Hatter's family home.
Real World Extras: Hamish/ Alice's Mother/ Dr Addison Bennett
All these characters did alright. Alice's Mother was the best of the the group, in my opinion. I didn't like bringing Hamish back for a second go. Didn't have much to do in the first, didn't have much to do here. He was just a plot ploy for Alice to refuse in both movies. Andrew Scott, or as I like to call him Moriarty from BBC's Sherlock, was the asylums doctor, whom got knocked out by Alice. He didn't do much anyways.
Now we are gonna get good as it is time to talk about the Wonderland characters.
Sacha Baron Cohen as Time/ Time's henchmen
Time was my favorite character in this film. He had a ton of great moments. I liked the way he looked and I'm not sure whether or not he had an accent, because at some points his voice pattern sounded like he had one. I loved that he wasn't the antagonist, because the trailers painted him in such a position. I liked his little robot henchmen. They were funny at some points. They did act like the microbots from Big Hero 6, when they formed together a big robot to keep the clock from ticking. I loved Times reaction whenever someone mentioned time for instance after Alice asked if she could borrow some of his time, his reaction was "Why would you want some of me?" That was hilarious. While we are talking about Time, let's mention his castle, because that looked amazing. I loved that the outside from a birds-eye view it looked like a clock and the inside the different sections of the people living in Underland and the people that died were represented by pocket watches. That was genius. Then again, how does Time know, who dies and who doesn't and also if by placing a pocket watch back into the living section, could that result in bringing someone back from the dead? I loved the look of the chronosphere and I liked how the time travel sea looked and how you could access different important times. But how did going through the mirror allow Alice to escape? Why didn't Time go after her? Is it that people from Underland can't go to the real world? Anyways, let's move on.
Johnny Deep as Tarrant Hightopp/ The Mad Hatter
Johnny Depp seems to be an actor that Disney likes to use in most of their live-action films. He's been in the Pirates franchise, he was Tonto in The Lone Ranger, and he's The Mad Hatter in the Alice movies. I think he does a great job in this film. Time and him share a scene, when they are at the table and Tarrant, the Hare, Cheshire, and the Mouse spew out so many time puns. That scene was comedy gold. I laughed so hard. There were surprisingly some lines that Tarrant gave that really interested me. For example, after Alice said that his family still living was impossible, his line that he said to her "You're not Alice. My Alice would believe me." That line got me. He is really at the center at the story. I didn't understand at first how finding the remnants of the hat he made, as a boy, meant that his family was alive. Probably because again his father had dropped it, but again he seemed like he knew knew. But if he didn't have that gut feeling, we'd have no movie. While we are talking about Tarrant, let's talk about his family. His family didn't have much to do really. I liked Rhys Ifans as the father, but he along with his family didn't have anything to do. He did have great scenes, but nothing to do.
Anne Hathaway as Mirana of Marmoreal/The White Queen
I like Anne Hathaway. She's a great actress. She was in that recent Intern film, that I loved. But as The White Queen, she doesn't work as this character. First of all, she does these weird things with her hands, with her moving them in all different positions. That seems weird. Second, sometimes she had some cartoonish dialogue. For instance, when she was telling Alice what she need to do to save The Hatter she was like "There is a way, but it's dangerous to do." Dude, might as well ask her to do it. Also, it was unsympathetic of her to frame her sister for eating that tart and judging by what Iracebeth said at the end, it completely derailed her for life. More on that when it's her turn. In this film, the filmmakers seemed to want to paint this character, who is normally the good of the two, as a very mean character. I know that the movie tried to aim at the message of even the good guys are not perfect, but they did that too much that for me, almost reversed the roles of the two.
Helena Bonham Carter as Iracebeth of Crims/The Red Queen
As with Anne Hathaway, I like Helena Bonham Carter, but she didn't work here. The filmmakers tried and almost failed at bringing humanity to the character of The Red Queen. In the beginning of the film she was a nuccense with her "relationship" with Time. That wasn't a good thing. It got me to care a little bit, when we saw what Mirana did to her, but then that led to another problem with two characters and with the film overall. When Mirana finally apologized for framing Iracebeth, Iracebeth says "That's all I wanted." To me, whoa! If that's what she all wanted, why didn't Mirana apologize to her sooner? I would pull Mirana aside and say "You do realize that she has killed a lot of people right? If all she wanted was an apology, why didn't you give one earlier?" I can't let Iracebeth of that easy. The fact that she would kill a lot of innocent people just to get an apologize was bonkers. It's also that Mirana didn't apologize sooner rather than later, that made it even more sad, because than that petty mistake changed your sister. Now maybe on a second viewing it won't seem like that, but so far that's my opinion.
Alan Rickman as Absolem
Alan Rickman didn't have much to do. Clearly, that was a result of his passing, earlier this year. I just wanted to give him his own subject, because he deserves it. I loved the actor. He's was such a talented actor. His most notable role, for me, was his infamous role as Severus Snape from the Harry Potter films. If you haven't seen those films, check them out. They are fantastic films. Anyways, he was a great actor and rest in peace Alan Rickman.
Overall Thoughts
I think there's no where else to go with the Alice films. Unless Disney can find a way to make the Alice films better, I think they should be retired. The film was a good film, not a total loss, an entertaining film. But with all the success Disney has been having this year with Zootopia, which opened with near-perfect reviews and barely made a billion dollars, and also with The Jungle Book and Captain America Civil War, this is a rare misstep, however last year they had the exact same thing with Tomorowland and how that bombed, but Tomorowland, in my eyes, was a great film. That's my review of Alice 2, what did you think of the film? Who were your favorite characters, what did you like and what did you not like? Write in the comments, and give me ideas on what to do next.
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