Rating: 5/10

Starring: Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska. Helena Bonham Carter

Director: James Bobin

MPAA Rating: PG

Take a peek through the looking glass as much loved Alice and Wonderland characters are brought to life again in Alice: Through the Looking Glass. The movie, released May 27, grossed a total of $287.1 million, and had mixed reviews from fans and critics. Some say the movie had no real basis, while others were thrilled at the return. If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you should know by now how I feel about sequels, and this movie sadly didn’t cut it in my realm of standards. It was another successor movie that no one truly asked for, with its original release barely being one of recent memory.

One of the only things this movie had going for itself was its visually attractive effects and graphics. The whole movie was a trip, with giant waves of color and texture that had you wondering which way was up and which was down. However, it was pushing the boundary between perfect for the theme and overdone. The first movie did these animations to an extent, but Through the Looking Glass took it all a step further. Not only this, but the personification of Time by Sacha Baron Cohen was a magnificent concept to process and was delightful to see.

The last positive thing about this movie is the fact they could bring back the entire original cast from Alice in Wonderland, a props for any sequel.

Besides this, I found Through the Looking Glass to be an underwhelming, confusing story line dressed up as said fancy graphics and a semi-good cast. The story line itself doesn’t truly make sense: fighting time and almost destroying the universe just to cheer a friend up? Or a lifelong feud over some spilled crumbs? Please, hit me with a more confusing, what-was-the-point bearing movie.

It’s not like it’s offensively awful and I feel the need to write a thousand words protesting its existence, it’s just sort of blah: more of a turn-it-on-for-movie-night-if-it-happens-to-be-on type of thing. Its score comes solely from its aforementioned slight achievement in graphics and concepts, but it is worlds away from Lewis Carroll’s legacy or even the previous work of Tim Burton, who was smart to not take the offer to direct the sequel; his shoulders were home free of the burden of the negative reception it received.

Yet another large problem with this movie is the story essentially destroys the characters. The Hatter became too depressed to be the fun-loving, goofy, lisp-having friend he once was. The feud of the queens erases the seemingly unreasonable meanness from the Red Queen and the fragility of the White.

Overall, Alice: Through the Looking Glass proves to be complicated, seemingly unnecessary and only mildly entertaining, with only hallucinogenic graphics and real-life rooted problems to support it. Alice is boring and uninteresting. The plot line of the two queens couldn’t stand on its own and really just complicated things further and essentially every main and very previously loved character was completely flipped in personality. If you ask me, I won’t remember this movie a week after seeing it, especially with some of the enticing new releases set to release this summer.