Hello, night owls! The summer movie season is underway and people are hitting the movie theatres to see the biggest-hyped (or best advertised) films available. Over the past couple weeks, I got the chance to see Alice Through the Looking Glass, sequel to 2010's Alice in Wonderland and the latest installment in the X-Men franchise, X-Men: Apocalypse. What do these two movies have in common?
They're both doing poorly at the box office. And I can understand why.
However, I came away from both movies with very different reactions. One left me wondering how it ever got to the big screen and the other had me feeling giddy with excitement (much to my surprise). How could two flawed movies do that?
Well, let me explain.
Tonight, I'll dig deep into the Alice flick. I'd seen the 2010 movie years ago (before I looked critically at movies) and immediately loved it. The more time passed and the more I learned about the inner workings of movies, however, the more I realized how flawed Alice in Wonderland was. It's "chosen one" plot was in no way reminiscent of the original stories and it was, of course, an uninteresting plot. But even now, that doesn't prevent me from watching it every once in a while. While it is full of overused tropes, changes that betrayed the integrity of the book/animated movie, and colors that were a little too dark for Wonderland (or should I say, "Underland" *face-palm*), there's something about it that still makes me like it. Like Twizzlers, it's not good, but it's not too bad, either.
Alice Through the Looking Glass, on the other hand, had all the same bad elements in them and then some. The whole time I watched this movie, I felt like I was watching someone's fan-fiction instead of a genuine continuation. I mean, this was written by Linda Woolverton - the writer behind Disney's Beauty and the Beast. How could the mind behind one of the greatest animated films of all time come up with such fanfiction.net crap as this!?
She didn't take enough advantage of the the material of Lewis Carol to make it feel like a true Alice story. In the original Through the Looking Glass, chess was heavily involved, but in here, the chess pieces are shown for about five minutes and then are totally forgotten. The whole story borders around time travel, which doesn't feel right in the world of Wonderland. Alice tiptoes a bit precariously on the line of being a Mary Sue with her "rebellious" ways, her lifestyle, and clothing choices. The dialogue is horrendous and loaded with cliche quotes about the impossible and dreadful puns about time. None of the actors look invested at all, especially Johnny Depp (whose lisp was infuriatingly distracting!!). Of all the actors, the only one who was fun to watch was Andrew Scott as the asylum doctor (you might recognize this man as the morbidly entertaining Moriarty of BBC's Sherlock). Seeing that this was also Alan Rickman's last film (RIP, Professor Snape), I was expecting more of him in it, but his character, Absalom the butterfly, was only there for one scene in the beginning of the film.
But my biggest problem with the whole movie lies in the story itself. The story is about Alice traveling through time to help the Hatter find his family.
Uhh...why are we supposed to care about the Hatter finding his family? There was no build-up about a lost family and missing them in the first movie. Are we just supposed to go along with it because Hatter is one of the best-loved characters of the Alice stories?
In Carol's Through the Looking Glass, the story was about Alice playing her way through Wonderland in the biggest chess game ever to promote herself from a pawn to a queen. Doesn't that sound a lot more interesting than a Finding Dory rip-off?
On top of that, the original story concept would be perfect for a female empowerment story, which is what Woolverton had in mind (big surprise). In Woolverton's story, the only empowerment we see is whenever Alice is in the real world, leading a ship, facing off against hobnobbing elitists and resisting creepy psychiatrists. In those scenes, we're just thrown in with little development, expected to think, "She can do that? She's awesome!" In Wonderland, even though she's the only one who can use the Cronosphere (time traveling device), she still wanders around with the same sense of incompetence as she had in the first movie. Not to mention, Mia Wasikowska's acting doesn't help suggest that Alice is a strong person.
The biggest thing I felt walking away from this movie was that there were so many opportunities for a more interesting story that were completely ignored. There are so many things in Carol's book that could have been integrated in a cool way, and if his original plot had been kept, it could have made more a more interesting sequel - possibly, even better than the first movie. Unfortunately, Woolverton used this sequel opportunity to create a dull, uninteresting "what if?" scenario that anyone could concoct in their sleep. It's especially sad considering this may be the last big Alice film we get in a while.
So, yeah...a wasted opportunity with too little Rickman. The only pluses for me were the costumes, the colors, the sets, Alice and the Hatter's parting scene, and Andrew Scott playing Moriarty again (really, there is no difference!).
If you're wondering about my thoughts on X-Men: Apocalypse...yeah, that was the movie that made me feel excited. I know there are flaws and plot-holes, I know it drags on in spots, and I know critics are calling it a "franchise killer", but it was definitely more enjoyable to watch - especially with the return of Nightcrawler!! It's not on par with other Marvel films and knowing that ahead of time, I had set my expectations low for this one. Nonetheless, I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was and seeing the mutants as younger, less-experienced fighters was very interesting. I also loved James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Charles Xavier and Magneto in this film. I won't go into too many details (since I have some night owl business to attend to) but probably the biggest rub for me with this film was Jennifer Lawrence's performance. Her portrayal of Mystique felt very lackluster.
So if you want my advice on which of these two films is the better summer pick in spite of their poor earnings, I'd definitely recommend X-Men over Alice. Even though the X-Men film could have been better, you'll definitely get a lot more interesting action and more interesting characters than you will in Alice Through the Looking Glass.
~Maud,
Official Night Owl
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