Alice Through the Looking Glass

Years after the events in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, Alice is summoned through a mirror where she reunites with her Wonderland friends who need her to steal a Chronosphere and travel back in time to discover a cure for the Mad Hatter’s descent into a fitful state of depression. Now I was quite pleased with Mia Wasikowska in the role of Alice as a medieval warrior, in fact she was the best thing about that first movie, and I remember pointing out that Johnny Depp’s Hatter should’ve been saved as a Batman villain, but I prefer this one which presents a much darker, destructive atmosphere much like the Disney Return To Oz sequel that was not a musical and made kids cry and flee the theater when Dorothy Gale is scheduled to undergo shock therapy. Once again I question just who is their targeted audience, having set this variation on Carroll’s tale in 1875, a time when women weren’t exactly independent spirits. Alice Kingsleigh has taken over her father’s ship, is working for her jilted fiancé and at odds with her mom. The Hatter is having serious regrets about his childhood and siblings Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter (as the White Queen and the Red Queen) are squabbling over the tarts! Not at all what I expected, it’s closer to Doctor Who than Dr. Seuss, and it works!

[PG]