Alice Through the Looking Glass- Film Review

Alice Through the Looking Glass- Film Reviews

Sequel have been very popular in the last couple of years, in 2016 alone there was 37 sequels which were released and this is because Hollywood decided to exploit people and make easy money from these sequels, the studios have become greedy and want to make money. Sequels are made mostly because the people in the filmmaking business just wanted to make more money. In 2010, Alice in Wonderland was released, it was directed by Tim Burton. The film had very successful box office run with the film making more than a billion dollars internationally. The film didn’t score well with the critics and people criticised for the quite a few things such as the narrative, the characters being one dimensional and the world of wonderland looks dull and uninteresting. There was no need for the film to receive a sequel at all but for some reason they decided to make a sequel six years after the original film, to capitalise on the financial aspect of the original film. This is Alice through the Looking Glass, this is the sequel that nobody wanted and nobody asked for, but because Disney wanted to make money they decided to cash in on the success of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice through the looking Glass is directed James Bobin, and it stars Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. This is a film that is only produced by Tim Burton, this is a film that has not got one thing about it that makes any good. The performances are flat, dull and everyone seems like they don’t care about this film. Mia Wasikowska has evolved since the beginning of her career, but like the first film she doesn’t know how to conduct any facial expressions. The face she pulls throughout the film is just the same look of concern, but the look is flat and doesn’t really show anything else. However, she is not the worst aspect of this film, there are other aspects such as Johnny Depp. Depp seems like he doesn’t care either and he just has no charisma when he delivers his lines. The worst thing about Depp’s performance is that he has this annoying Lisp, there are people who do have lisps in real life, but the character Depp portrays here didn’t have a lisp in the first film, so as an audience we know this isn’t trait that his character didn’t have but for some reason he is just given it. The rest of the cast are the same, they actors give a flat and dull performance and they seem like they don’t care. The only actor that gives an okay performance is Sacha Boren Cohen, who plays the character time in the film, he is the only actor in this film that is having fun with the film, and Cohen in this film doesn’t give a great performance but he gives an over-the-top performance and this is something which you can enjoy when watching this film, and this is the only thing that you like in this film because everything else in this film is bad.

The acting is some of worst that has been put to film, this is not the only negative aspect about this film. The CGI is something else which is not done to high standard, the films CGI has some flat and lifeless CGI in the film and like the first film you can tell what is CGI and what is not CGI, and in a film that has been filled with CGI it looks fake and unrealistic. In a year that we have received films such as the live-action version of The Jungle Book and Doctor Strange which both films had some of best visual effects, this film has poor and terrible CGI in comparison to other films, and when you look at these films and this film, Alice Through the Looking Glass will not hold up well compared to other films that were released in 2016. An example of the poor quality in the CGI would be the opening sequence, we see Alice on this ship that she is the captain of, the CGI here should be outstanding because of how much the special effects have come since the 1993. This film has no attention given to it, and this shows with the visual effects being so poorly made, every texture looks flat and dull and there isn’t enough detail which means that the CGI hasn’t been rendered properly. The CGI is very bad in this film and while the CGI is bad it is not the worst aspect in this film but this is not all when talking about this film because there are more terrible things about this film.

However, the acting and CGI is not the worst aspect about this film, the worst thing about this film is the script and the pacing of the film. The script is not very well written because the writers decided that they should have Alice go back into wonderland and then she should go back in time, the script has been written very badly and like the rest of film it is just another poor aspect of the film. However, the pacing is also another issue with the film is the pacing, the first act of the film up until the point that Alice travels to Wonderland, the pacing is okay it is not great but the it feels well-paced, however when Alice enters Wonderland it feels slow and pacing is bad. The second act feels like that the characters have no antagonistic force to challenge them and this is something which the whole film suffers from the bad and bad pacing, and because the script hasn’t had enough attention because the second act drags. This is a film which has terrible pacing and when you watch this film, you will be checking you phone to see how long is left of this misery. The script is terrible with poor writing and there isn’t enough material for a decent film to be made out of and this is because Disney had decided that it would be best to make a film with a lack of attention and this means that the studio could make money.

Are they any positive aspects? Well yes, Sacha Boren Cohen is decent throughout the runtime, he is very entertaining as the character Time. He understands that the film is not very good and is having fun with the script, he is over the top but he is not as annoying as Depp in this film. There is some good editing, the editor has done a good job of putting the film together has been done well to high standard and this is one of three positive aspects to this film because the editing has been done well and. The final thing is that the director of photography and the director have made good decisions about the shots that they have put into the film, have had some effort. The cinematography is something which is good in this film because the shots are excellent in their construction. These are the only positives in the film, but if you have a chance to watch this film, the best advice would be to avoid this film at all costs because of how bad the film has been constructed in pre-production and in production. Alice Through the Looking Glass is bad film, it is a sequel that nobody asked for and nobody wanted to see the continuing adventures of Alice. This is a film which has nothing which is good, the editing is bad, the acting is bad, and the visual are flat and dull with nothing good about this film. This is shame because there is talented cast behind this film, the actors in this film have made better films and this is something which is hard to understand because Anne Hathaway has been Oscar nominated and Depp has had a successful career out of this. The thing is that the Alice in wonderland books can work as films, the adaptation process hasn’t been done correctly, the reason this film doesn’t work is because the previous film took a lot of the source material from the Alice through the looking glass book, and the creative minds just had no idea on where to take the story after the first film.

Conclusion

Alice Through the Looking Glass is a film that has a talented cast, but the filmmakers don’t capitalise on the talent that they have. The film is an attempt to capitalise on the first films success but the screenwriters just couldn’t write an entertaining film. There are some positive things but the rest of the film brings the positive aspects down, the negative aspects make this film hard to watch through the entire runtime of the film. If you have the chance to watch this film, it would better to avoid watching this film because this is terrible from start to finish, watch something else like the live-action version of The Jungle Book because that film is family friendly that has had a lot of creative effort put into the film.

Rating: 3/10.