Fantasy of 'Alice' sequel overpowered by effects, realism
Alice returns from Wonderland and becomes the commander of a British merchant ship in 1874 - shortly before being committed to a Victorian-era insane asylum.
The Mad Hatter begins to die of a broken heart, and as his boffo orange Bozo coif fades to gray, he looks like a shambling extra on "The Walking Dead."
Then comes the timely end of the universe, threatening to reduce all matter to rusty, dried-up ash in the ultimate global warming metaphor.
"Alice Through the Looking Glass" - James Bobin's sequel to Tim Burton's 2010 fantasy "Alice in Wonderland" - thankfully resembles no previous film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 1871 chess-centric novel.
It does resemble H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine," Michael Bay's "Transformers," Alfonso Cuarón's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and Disney's own "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, starring many actors reprising roles from Burton's original film.
Bobin may lack Burton's knack for dark, quirky humor, but he spurs the narrative along. Still, he must deal with a bloated project in which a speeding freight train of jaw-dropping visual effects dominates a generic save-the-world plot and a cast of dull, drab characters texting in their performances.
How could the Cheshire cat be so instantly forgettable?
"Through the Looking Glass" begins with Captain Alice Kinsleigh (Mia Wasikowska, channeling former Disney starlet Haley Mills), saving her late father's ship, the Wonder, from pirates by performing impossible derring-do with nautical physics.
"The only way to do the impossible," she says, "is to believe it is possible!"
Back in London, Alice can't believe that her sniveling former suitor, Hamish (Leo Bill), has conspired to swindle her dear sweet mother out of her house and possessions if Alice doesn't surrender the Wonder and work as his clerk.
Alice barely has time to reflect on this before she steps through a large mirror and magically returns to Wonderland.
The old gang - White Rabbit (Michael Sheen), Cheshire cat (Stephen Fry), Tweedledee & Tweedledum (Matt Lucas), the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) - welcome her home. They want to help the clinically depressed Hatter (Johnny Depp, looking like Willy Wonka's Mr. Hyde).
He feels guilty about his family being dead, particularly his grumpy dad (Rhys Ifans).
The White Queen gives Alice a Mission Impossible: She must steal a magical device called the chronosphere from Time itself (Sacha Baron Cohen with electrified blue eyes and a killer mustache), travel into the past and save Hatter's family.
The vengeful Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) also wants the chronosphere, creating a race against time before the universal Master Clock stops.
Where Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" celebrated fantasy and un-logical fun, Bobin's sequel (written by Linda Woolverton) pushes real-world problems (sibling rivalries, guilt, father-son issues) on to the residents of Wonderland, as if suddenly they had dropped into a Lifetime Channel movie.
But what if Wolverton intended her tired "save the world" plot to be a genuine warning about the effects of global warming?
Will Time be on our side? Or will he merely twitch his mustache and tell us it's "un-possible" to stop it?
“Alice Through the Looking Glass”
★ ★
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alan Rickman, Toby Jones
Directed by: James Bobin
Other: A Walt Disney Pictures release. Rated PG. 108 minutes