The Fanboy SEO reviews Alice through the Looking Glass from Walt Disney Studios starring Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Cohen Baron and Johnny Depp.

The movie is a sequel to the live action Alice in Wonderland movie of with most of the main cast reprising their roles including Mia Wasikowska who plays Alice and Depp who plays the Mad Hatter.

Alice returns to Wonderland to help her friend the Hatter who begins acting weird. Turns out they need to go back in time to rescue Hatter’s folks. But to do that they need the chronosphere kept by Time (Sacha Baron Cohen). To complicate matters, the Red Queen is also in the story and we have a rather interesting movie right here.

Let me highlight some of the great things about the movie and hopefully you line up when it opens next month.

Strong lead

Alice was always a strong female character and for this outing that still remains true. How does the movie let us know that she is, in true Disney princess fashion, she enters the scene as the Captain of her own ship. She’s of quick wit and unbreakable resolve and won’t have any guy’s BS. Later we see bits of that as she goes on her quest to help Hatter. Of course being headstrong is different from being intelligent; Alice commits a huge blunder that ultimately complicates the situation.

Utter Defeat Sells

Disney is rarely known for utter defeat or last minute saves. This movie has that however. In a tense moment at the climax, Alice fails and we are left for a few seconds with an exposition revealing that failure. Spoiler alert, its “shocking”. The film loves to bait us with defeat or sad moments and burst back into great moments of victory. Remember that time they “killed” Mad Hatter? Yeah.

Timey Wimey

I love a good time travel story thats done right and Alice through the Looking Glass delivers that. It also reinforces the general rules of Time Travel without sounding too crazy. The comic book geek in me is also getting this Grant Morrison vibe to it, particularly MULTIVERSITY. The chronosphere in itself was something like Morrison would design and think of and the time-space actually felt like an iteration of “The Bleed”.

Time Jokes

Its only a matter of time before they made puns and time jokes in this film and when you get to those parts, you have to laugh. I did a slow clap at those scenes to be honest. Watch out for those when the Hatter and his crew encounter Time during tea time. That was a sure hoot.

Time Idioms

They don’t explain these kinds of puns and visuals but its there. In one scene, we see Alice literally and figuratively racing against time in the Wonderland version of the time steam; again slow clap was in order.

Creature Feature

Tim Burton always does good with visuals especially when working with frequent collaborators like Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. For this movie we meet intricately designed characters like the seconds, the minutes and the hour. Real treat for me to be honest especially during those moments they merge by piling up. The actual costumes for the rest of the cast looked great too.

Verdict

9/10 – I truly enjoyed Alice through the Looking Glass and its the first time I can say that I want to watch it again, its even better if you rewatch it on IMAX.