Alice im Wunderland: Hinter den Spiegeln

This film is quite zany compared to the first one. It has some new additions - the queens and the time travel - that make it quite fresh. However, showing the backstory of the queens can also make them feel too grounded and not surreal enough. The whole "saving the world" feel is also a bit too typical for Hollywood. The visual imagination is good as always though.

I enjoyed the 2010 "Alice in Wonderland" that had that unique Tim Burton touch to it. But I wasn't in any rush to get to see the 2016 sequel "Alice: Through the Looking Glass". Why? Well, because just what more could there be to tell about this story?

With that being said, then don't get me wrong. "Alice: Through the Looking Glass" is not a bad movie, it just seems like a movie that hardly was necessary to have been made. It is a good movie in itself, and works quite well as a stand-alone, if you will.

The effects in "Alice: Through the Looking Glass" were great, as they also were in the previous movie. And it was nice to see the beloved characters from the first movie return, and also to see the amazing job that the special effects team pulled off at bringing the world to life. Lots of details, vivid colors and memorable characters.

The actors and actresses in the movie were doing good jobs with their given roles, and it was a great treat to have the original cast return to play their characters once again. The Time character was interesting, but it left a less than savory taste in my mouth that they had cast Sacha Baron Cohen for this role. He is not an actor that I am too fond of, so in my opinion another cast would have been preferable. I do enjoy the Mad Hatter character and Johnny Depp does a great job in portraying him. And it was nice to get to see more of that quirky character and get to know more of his background.

The special effects and wardrobe teams really are the ones shining in this movie, because there are just so many wonderful things to look at throughout the movie. And the level of creativity is just astounding. No matter where you look there is something breathtaking.

"Alice: Through the Looking Glass" is certainly an entertaining movie, but it is hardly one that you will sit down and watch again any time soon.

Alice travels into the past on an adventure to save the Mad Hatter from the grief that is poisoning him.

Set in 1875, it brings up albeit only briefly explores the misogyny of patriarchy, where mediocre men take away everything from extraordinary women through the limitations they put on them. It seems more comfortable examining problems between family members; Tarrant feels rejected by his father, mostly because he has been. And this is of course a much safer thing for a mainstream film to go into, and Disney prefers taking the well trodden path to profit to taking risks. Just like the Tim Burton original, this is nowhere near as creative and imaginative as the 1951 original, or, from what I hear, the novels. This does take a few steps in the right direction, though both of these definitely lose something in trying to make Wonderland a real, physical place that operates on some continuity and logic, when part of the appeal was that this was not the case. I appreciate that this is something that has been done with a lot of adaptations in recent years, and a lot, perhaps even most, of the time that is the right approach; however, like any rule, it has exceptions, and this is one. This is essentially Back to the Future in a fantasy setting; if you altered various aesthetic aspects, and a handful of lines of dialog, you would never get that it was related to the work of Lewis Carroll, which should never be the case with this sort of thing. The third Men in Black movie has a similar issue.

It is very much one of those sequels that expects you to have watched and remember the predecessor; it doesn't particularly reintroduce the recurring characters. The action is exciting, especially in the effective climax. This is filmed and edited well, capturing the sometimes epic scope. The special effects are convincing, and the design of sets, creatures, makeup and costumes is impressive and provides a very high number of memorable, unique sights and sounds. These include traversing the face of a massive clock, living chess pieces, seconds becoming minutes(you'll know it when you reach it), talking animals, bipedal vegetables, loops and a seemingly non-stop barrage of time puns. The cast are clearly having a ball, in particular the always deeply engaging to watch Helena Bonham Carter.

I recommend this only to the biggest fans of those involved. 7/10.

It is "decent". Not extraordinary, nor a waste of time. The sad thing is that it focuses more on the sparkly scenes, like these would impact the viewer the most. In fact, the story lacks substance and this should have been the epicentre of interest. It is far from great, although it's not a disappointment. Something slipped through the fingers of the producers when they were producing this movie. Now it's another commercial film.

I liked the fact that the script of the movie is full of puns and rhymes taken from the original work. This makes the movie as interesting as the original Through the Looking Glass since Lewiss Carroll was famous with riddles and hidden messages in his works and he was known to include mathematical wonders in the writing such as the case of Alice in Wonderland. Maybe the plot was not greasy enough but overall it was a nice movie. The character that I liked most is Hatter( Johnny Depp) who has again striken me with his ability to wear different hats of roles and to impersonate himself in the character he's given. Also, the character of Alice was a fit with her angelic smile that reflects an innocent adult.