Alice Through the Looking Glass Review - Corporate Magic

The film opens on a boat being pursued by some form of baddy boat, in the middle of a convenient storm. This boat is captained by our hero, Alice, and she screams some orders at her crew in an attempt to get away from the baddy boat. Her crew tells her - rain splashing dramatically against their face like the good pathetic fallacy it is - that the plan is impossible. “You know what my thoughts are on that word,” she replies, a nice callback to the first film, as well as to her relationship with her late father. Eventually, after a great big CGI filled set piece, they escape the baddy boat via an elaborate manoeuvre across a shallow patch of water. ‘Shallow,’ I think, 'sums up that action sequence perfectly.’ It's the kind of spectacle with so little weight to it and so many bits of unbelievable physics flying about offending scientists that I find myself sitting in the cinema reviewing the film instead of watching it.

There is hope, however. Mia Wasiowska’s Alice is surprisingly engaging, especially compared to her monotonous, Hayden-Christensen-in-Attack-of-the-Clones performance in the first film. She delivers her lines with a well measured quirkiness, walking the line between a wooden performance and a Johnny Depp performance very nicely. It also helps that a whole heap of injustice is poured onto her by antagonist #1 Hamish who, bitter after being rejected by Alice in the first film, messes with her career “because she's a woman”. Obviously, our hero defies this blatant injustice, sending a nice, empowering message and keeping me constantly on her side.

After encountering Hamish, Alice eventually makes her way back to not-Wonderland-because-that-would-make-too-much-sense, aka Underland. We begin to meet the rest of the cast, starting with the late legend Alan Rickman in his last film role. It's a fairly short voice part, but it's still Alan freaking Rickman. We're then introduced to the rest of the cast so rapidly I feel like I'm late for tea. It's a strong cast, featuring the likes of Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas (twice) and Anne Hathaway. The problem lies in the fact that there's so many of them they each only get about as much screen time as a supporting character in Captain America: Civil War.

There are supporting characters with a stronger focus, the first of which we meet being Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter. If you didn't like Depp in the first film, there's no reason you'd like him any more this time round. Fortunately for you, he does have a smaller chunk of screen time in this film, impressively without his character suffering from being underdeveloped. This is because, despite not always seeing him on screen, the plot pretty much revolves around the Hatter, and Alice's attempts to rescue his family from the clutches of Sacha Baron Cohen as Time. It's another put-on-a-silly-accent-and-hope-for-the-best performance from Cohen, but fortunately it does work. He's entertaining whenever he's on screen and manages to be both intimidating and comical at the same time. His relationship with Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen is also suitably silly (if a little irritating), and Carter's character is explored in a surprising amount of depth.

As I'm watching the numerous spectacles and set pieces the film throws at me, I'm beginning to notice a bit of a creative conflict. There's clear imagination in the designs on display here - and the concept art is probably amazing - but it's all produced in a very corporate feeling way: with CGI. It's not even very good CGI, like The Force Awakens or The Jungle Book. It's obvious, groan inducing CGI. It's a shame, because whenever the action is taking place in a physical set, everything is bursting with appropriate madness. Sadly, the majority of the time all this creativity is bogged down by shoddy CGI that can only make me think of studio executives and focus groups.

There's a thick layer of corporate grime over the top of this film, but if you can look past it, it is totally worth it. Director James Bobin has followed Tim Burton very efficiently and if someone told me this was Burton, I'd probably believe them. Colour is used very effectively throughout; I particularly notice it in Depp's typically bonkers makeup. It changes colour depending on the Hatter’s well-being and even goes completely white when he's at his darkest point. I'm also especially dazzled when the Red Queen’s heart shaped fortress comes on screen made entirely out of twisted plants and vines. It's a fascinating design that really captivates the viewer when it's presented as a physical set, but - like too much of the film - it's weakened when in its computer generated form.

The film finishes, and I'm not quite sure what to think. It worked in numerous ways, and was arguably stronger than its predecessor. It had an equally fantastic cast, but it also benefitted from a much more assured performance by Wasiowska. But whilst I was completely convinced by the design, the CGI did all it could to remind me that this was, as a matter of fact, completely fake. And I never found myself in a situation where the film truly excited me. Alice Through the Looking Glass is, to sum it up in one word, competent. Nothing more, nothing less.

6.6/10