Where's the Wonder? An "Alice Through The Looking Glass" Review
When
a film is marketed as one that stars Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne
Hathaway, and Sacha Baron Cohen – not to mention it being a dedication to Alan
Rickman’s memory – you won’t be able to hold back the itchiness to see it the
moment it comes out in theaters. Naturally, I came to see Alice Through the Looking Glass on the first day that it was
released in Philippine cinemas, thanks to the awesome guys from Globe Telecom
who held a movie screening.
In
this James Bobin sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), Alice Kingsleigh goes back to
Underland where she eventually meets the personification of Time, who manages
the time (duh) and lives of
Underlandians. Alice asks for Time’s help in going back to the past to save the
Mad Hatter’s family from the Jabberwocky. After finding out that the Red Queen
and Time are acquainted, Alice steals the chronosphere and travels to the past
to help the Mad Hatter. However, changing the course of history has its
consequences, and Alice later on learns that even though she cannot change the
past, she can learn from it.
Alice Through the Looking Glass Trailer
Alice Through the Looking Glass is just as visually stimulating as its predecessor, with undoubtedly expensive CGI, eye-popping colors, and peculiar characters all contributing to this spectacle of a mash-up that’s best appreciated in 3D. The sequences felt like flipping through the pages of a colorful children’s book, and as I allowed myself to delve into the chaos and crazy of the visual deign, I’d say it’s pretty much how I imagined Alice’s Wonderland would look like.
However,
what makes a good children’s book, is not just the visual design but also the
storytelling itself. Alice Through the
Looking Glass may have excelled in the CGI department, but sadly, I cannot
say the same for its storyline. First of all, the closest that the film
ventured into Lewis Carroll’s 1871 novel Through
the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, is a short chessboard scene
where we are demonstrated a re-enactment of the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme.
After that, it’s a completely different story altogether, and if it wasn’t for
the familiar characters, there won’t be anything else that’s Lewis Carroll
about this movie.
A
realization struck me when I was halfway through the film. Alice Through the Looking Glass, it turns out, is an origin film of
sorts. The movie shows us how the Mad Hatter came to be the hatter that he is,
how the rift between the Red and White Queens began, as well as a glimpse of
the childhood of the rest of the quirky characters.
Now
I believe this is where the film started to lose its charm. The “origin story”
approach has somehow humanized the characters, providing logic and explanation
to their identities, which is not aligned with the crazy and chaos that
Wonderland was supposed to be. The storyline gave some “sense” to Wonderland,
which is problematic because the senselessness of the place is what makes it
fascinating in the first place. Alice
Through the Looking Glass’ plot ruined this fascination by injecting logic into the wonder.
I
remember when I was smaller, I was captivated by the dreamlike randomness of
the Alice in Wonderland cartoon classic. It was like a psychedelic movie for kids,
and I loved how the scenes became “curioser and curioser” so to speak,
especially with the absurdity and ridiculousness of the characters, who may not
seem to make sense on the surface but perfectly captures what fun and enjoyment
is for children.
This
sense of wonder was lost when Alice
Through the Looking Glass started presenting the Mad Hatter as a child who
had daddy issues, when we see that the Red and White Queens were once simple
village girls, and when it was shown that all that sibling rivalry was all
because of a childhood lie over tarts. Alice in Wonderland was supposed to be
random, illogical, and unreasonable – just like the answer to the Mad Hatter’s
riddle, “why is a raven like a writing
desk?” Why did this film try to make literal explanations to a perfectly
imaginative and dreamlike world?
If
anything, I did let out a few chuckles at several points in the movie,
especially with the puns about Time personified. The Cheshire Cat saying that
he was “right on Time” and sitting on Sacha Baron Cohen’s character was
hilarious! You can imagine what happened when they played with the phrases “Time
flies”, “Time to Go”, and most especially when the Mad Hatter asked, “when exactly
is 'soon'?”
Alice Through the
Looking Glass had so much potential especially with its stellar cast, but
all those were put to waste by a plot that doesn’t seem to fully understand its
source material. If time was money, I say it won’t be well spent on this movie.
Credits to the images and videos used in this post go to "Alice Through The Looking Glass" and/or to their respective owners. We do not own these materials. No copyright infringement intended.
No comments
Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment, I would appreciate your feedback :)