'Alice Through the Looking Glass' substitutes technological phantasmagoria for genuine wonderment
'Looking' stars Mia Wasikowska as the title character, who is now a ship's captain but who returns to Underland to attempt to help the Mad Hatter.
'Alice Through the Looking Glass' stars Johnny Depp.
Disney/AP
Freighted with an overload of gizmos, hardware, and special effects,聽鈥淎lice Through the Looking Glass鈥� is exhaustingly inventive. This 3-D聽sequel to Tim Burton鈥檚 鈥淎lice in Wonderland,鈥� directed by James Bobin聽and written by Linda Woolverton, substitutes technological聽phantasmagoria for genuine wonderment. Watching it, I felt like I was聽viewing the piece-by-piece construction of a gigantic mechanical聽contraption. It鈥檚 an achievement of sorts, but it's worlds away from the聽poignant lunacy of the Lewis Carroll books, which, except for a few of its聽cast of characters, this behemoth in no way resembles.
As in Burton鈥檚 movie, which was a surprise, billion-dollar-grossing smash hit, the new film features Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny聽Depp as her dearest friend, the Mad Hatter. Alice is now a buccaneering聽ship鈥檚 captain and the Hatter is deeply depressed about his missing family. To聽rescue him, she ventures back to Underland and has a confab with Time聽himself, plummily played by Sacha Baron Cohen in an accent that could聽perhaps best be described as Austro-Yiddish. His Chronosphere enables聽Alice to travel back to the Hatter鈥檚 childhood and attempt to undo the bad聽times.
There are other, parallel subplots, including a sibling smackdown聽between Anne Hathaway鈥檚 chalk-white queen and Helena Bonham聽Carter鈥檚 Red Queen, as amusingly feral as ever. Because Burton didn鈥檛聽direct (though he remains a co-producer), the film isn鈥檛 as icky-Gothic as聽its predecessor, and Depp, in a too-small role, has a touching fragility. But聽the only heartfelt moment of this movie for me came in the end credits,聽with its dedication to the late Alan Rickman, who provided the voice for聽the blue butterfly (and former caterpillar) Absolem. What a voice, what聽an actor, what a loss. Grade: B- (Rated PG for fantasy action/peril and some language.)