alice through the looking glass film review

“The problem is that the director tries to cram too much into the film’s brief 110-minute running time, not only incorporating “Alice In Wonderland,” but Carroll’s semi-epic poem, ‘Jabberwocky,’ as well as elements of ‘Howards End,’ ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ and ‘Joan of Arc.’ It’s all far too much for the children the movie is aimed at, as well as the adults who bring them.”įlash forward to a few days ago and you see that the monotony of the 2010 version still exists, only the story is even less compelling than Burton’s telling of the famous Lewis Carroll story (Carroll actually takes second billing to screenwriter Linda Woolverton, “ Maleficent,” here). Scene after scene are wonderful to behold (this is especially true in 3-D). And it’s not to say that Burton does not attempt to give the movie a stunning visual presence, he does, thanks to cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’ ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’).

These are words NO ONE should have to use in relating a film based upon one of the true classics of English literature like ‘Alice In Wonderland,’ but Burton, who has directed some of my favorite films (‘Batman,’ ‘Beetlejuice,’ ‘Sleepy Hollow,’ ‘Ed Wood,’ ‘Edward Scissorhands’) somehow manages the impossible. “Yes, dull, tedious, monotonous and just plain boring. Six years ago I wrote, “Here’s a word I never thought I would use in describing a Tim Burton film - boring. Not that the original version, directed by Tim Burton, was much better and certainly had few people clamoring for an encore. I usually do not read reviews prior to viewing a film and this was no exception with Alice Through the Looking Glass, but something just told me this would come to no good in the end. Plus, there is a certain sadness in attending a motion picture you feel in your bones will be an awful experience. In fact, the only humor I found in the enterprise was completely unintentional. I could not decide what was the worst thing to happen to Johnny Depp in 2016: Not getting a deserved Academy Award nomination for “ Black Mass,” the ugly and public divorce proceedings he is going through with his wife, Amber Heard, or starring in Alice Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to 2010’s “ Alice in Wonderland.” And while I’m sure he will be able to look back someday and laugh at the first two, the last item may not be so easily snickered at.

Alice through the looking glass film review