Alice Through the Looking Glass

⅗ Bones

*Not as Bad as it Should Have Been Award 2017 *

Honourable Mention Best of 2017

In the lead-up to my much overdue Best of 2017 list, I thought I’d include a review for a film that also features a very late and harried mammal. Or rather, its superior sequel. It was originally intended to be a quick mention on the Best List as a way to thumb my nose at convention like the rebel I am. Ha! Take that, established critics and review sites! I think this already forgotten and popularly disliked Hollywood effects explosion was more worth my time than Toni Erdman! Go ahead! GASP. But seriously, I can’t lie, I did enjoy this film a lot more than many others this year. It just had a spark...allow me to explain.

Is it garish? Redundant? A sequel to one of the most disliked adaptations of all time? Yes in triplicate, I’m afraid. But if there’s one thing most of us can cheer for, it’s an underdog…or a reformed villain. And this movie really did surprise me. It’s not quite a fully-rounded ‘good’ film, but there are certainly many good elements, and it dodges around many large gaping pits of bad, if not all of them. It even made me almost like the previous instalment with the way it used its established elements to enjoyable effect. (And I HATED its predecessor) Make no mistake, this is more like its maligned prequel than the books from which it purloins its title - but instead of a horrible “Chosen One”, war-story rehashing, this film attempts to actually have emotional heft and a more unique storyline. Sure, it still doesn’t ‘get’ what Alice in Wonderland should be about, but as its own thing that has definitively separated itself, it’s surprisingly palatable.

The plot is as such: Alice has returned from her whirlwind globetrotting to find that her old beau Hamish and the board of directors have conspired against her, buying out her family’s share in the company. Her mother will lose her home if Alice doesn’t trade her late father’s ship (and thus her freedom and sense of identity) to them and agree to work at a menial job. Alice, angry that her mother sold their shares to stop her daughter from gallivanting about in a most unladylike fashion, runs away to Wonderland (I'm not calling it Underland). Unfortunately, even here things are not right - the Hatter has become deathly ill with guilt over his failure to save his family from the Queen of Hearts’ massacre. Alice, desperate to save him as she couldn’t her own father, decides to steal the heart of Time himself to travel back into the past.

The standout character is Time, played with great humour by Sascha Baron Cohen. He is the universal clock, as well as a Fates-like guardian of life and death. The minute detailing of his design is also fascinating, as it should be - this character has never had a definitive appearance before now (surprising, considering the multitudes of Alice spinoff works). I love that you can literally see his gears grinding when he’s upset.

It’s nice that he’s not cast as the Villain, either, but rather a harried (if somewhat pompous and overbearing) force whom the protagonist has grievously harmed. He becomes the heartbeat of the piece. As Alice tries to save the Hatter’s family (and put off acceptance of her own father’s passing), she literally stops the world from being able to move forward, much like her own life. As she ‘wastes’ time, Time himself starts to waste away. Time isn’t Alice’s enemy, he’s not a thief who stole her father from her - rather, he is the one who gave her those precious moments in the first place. Only by accepting that sometimes the impossible really is impossible, as well as learning from the past and not clinging to it can she hope to move into the future.

There’s so much that could have been done better in this film, but the genuineness of the desire to call for reconciliation, compromise, and acceptance is welcome. It’s also interesting to have the protagonist as the villain of the piece, inciting the action, and then having to right her own wrongs -  facing her own flaws instead of a dragon. A sequel far superior to its predecessor, and a better Time than it had any right to be.