Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and the rest of the cast of Alice in Wonderland return for this sequel which deals with time. Its been six years since we last followed Alice down the rabbit hole. Now, since coming home from her voyage abroad, she must deal with issues both at home and in Wonderland. The whole idea of time comes into play as Alice feels that time is becoming more and more fleeting. After getting into a fight with her mother (Lindsay Duncan) about selling her father's ship, she enters a magic mirror after following the blue butterfly Absolem (the final performance of Alan Rickman). She learns about the distraught Hatter and through the white queen (Anne Hathaway) she must confront time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen) in order to learn what is troubling the hatter.
Sacha is fantastic as the new comer Time. As with any Tim Burton film there is always that quirkiness and whimsy. The design of Time is brilliant and Sacha really plays up the role with fantastic vigour. Rhys Ifans also makes a great appearance as the Hatter's father. Similar to Christopher Lee's performance in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Rhys plays the fatherly role with both love and stern velocity. He's great and really stands toe to toe with Johnny. It's great as well to see the whole cast return for this follow-up. Other new comers such as Andrew Scott (as a doctor who suspects Alice for having mental instabilities) and Ed Speleers (as James Harcourt) make minor appearances. Andrew was pretty fantastic as usual but he is underused and the sequence where Alice wakes up in a mental hospital just drags the middle part of the film down as I find it better for films such as these (Narnia, Oz) to begin and end in the real world and the main journey taking place in the mythical world. For Alice to suddenly appear in the real world half way through and for not much to happen except to delay her just feels like a waste. Speaking of waste, who was Ed Speleers supposed to be, a new love interest. Poor guy barely has any lines and his character has no development at all.
The whole concept of time in the film does get a little convoluted. Its interesting to see how the villains and other characters got to where they end up in the first film, only thing is that it still felt like something was missing.
What was a cool twist to have in the film was to have the villains turn out to be the real heroes. Nothing is black and white, there's that grey area. It did give the film a more real feel. I also liked the concept of family and the importance of keeping your family together. Just as Alice wants to keep her father's ship in the family, the mad hatter wants to find his. I was very happy to see how well James Bobin was able to continue the same look and feel of the first film and when adding in new additions he is still able to keep it feeling like a Tim Burton film. I do wish that the film had a more easier plot to understand.
Alice Through the Looking Glass is a descent follow up with the original cast, some great themes about family and the importance about being in the now than worrying about the future. Where the film lacks in character development and story it makes up with great visuals, a continued sense of wonder and a fantastic villain.
Rating: B
