One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do with it: – it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes.Lewis Carroll THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS CHAPTER I. “Alice Through the Looking Glass” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for perilous sequences. And in the Disney tradition, needless to say, everyone arrives home safe and sound. In the end, to paraphrase the Beatles, everyone is desperate to get back to where they once belonged.
But the cumulative effect is a nonstop ride on a 21st-century roller coaster.
Yes, they are spectacular enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen, even when attention wanders from the clichéd subplots. Most of the other special effects belong to a chilly post-“Star Wars” aesthetic. These are the only scenes in which the adjective “wondrous” truly applies. Whirring clocks accelerate and reverse time and sometimes become stuck, conveying a demented zaniness.
#ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS REVIEW BOOK MOVIE#
To procure the Chronosphere, Alice must steal the device from Time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen), a cranky half-human control freak with a ticking timepiece for a heart and an Austrian accent, living in a castle that suggests a giant clock.Īs uninspired and warmed over as you may find the narrative strands of the movie - with a screenplay by Linda Woolverton, who also wrote “Alice in Wonderland” - its unpredictable, rampaging sense of time lends it a manic energy in keeping with Carroll’s vision of nonsensical disorder. Mia Wasikowska’s Alice Kingsleigh is a thoroughly modern young superwoman outfitted in sumptuous Victorian costumes, and the latest Disney heroine viewed through a feminist lens. The third is science-fiction tomfoolery Carroll might have appreciated.Īlice’s temporal gyrations between present and past as she dives in and out of the liquid mirror give “Through the Looking Glass” a jarring whiz-bang momentum that intensifies and accelerates as the movie hurtles along. One involves a mean girl, a nice girl and forgiveness the second a father-son schism. It’s just an excuse on which to hang two trite overbearing fables and one amusing one. What does all this have to do with Lewis Carroll? Hardly anything. At least “Alice Through the Looking Glass” isn’t saddled with formulaic Disney songs, although as its perspective grows more cosmic, Danny Elfman’s score settles into a mood of overawed grandiosity. Credit the plot of that Broadway juggernaut “Wicked,” recycled for “Through the Looking Glass,” as the gift that keeps on giving. The sibling feud escalates into a global conflict that at one point stops time itself. Iracebeth’s bitterness dates to a childhood incident involving cake crumbs, in which she is blamed for Mirana’s mess. One of the major plot threads concerns the conflict between the evil Red Queen, Iracebeth (a feisty, snapping Helena Bonham Carter), and her sister, the angelic White Queen, Mirana (a pallid Anne Hathaway). Bobin believes in taking opulence and extravagance to extremes. Burton, whose original film made over $1 billion at the global box office, Mr. Were it not for sweets, there would hardly be a story. There’s more to gape at than the eye can take in.Ī symbol of that excess is a table set for a two-person tea party whose piles of goodies contain enough sugary calories to fell an entire Navy battalion from diabetic shock.
This sequel to Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” directed by James Bobin (“The Muppets”), is so cluttered with an unwieldy mixture of Victoriana and special-effects gadgetry that every nook and cranny is crammed with stuff. The best and maybe the only way to appreciate “Alice Through the Looking Glass” is to surrender to its mad digital excess and be whirled around through time and space in a world of grotesque overabundance.