Ranking All Of The Live-Action Disney Remakes

8. Alice Through The Looking Glass

Christopher Robin Winnie Pooh
Disney

Better than Burton's predecessor, but only barely.

With Burton busy this time around, Muppets director and Da Ali G Show architect James Bobin stepped in. And notably, his direction is a big step up. Whereas the first film used a desaturated and grey color palette not exactly fit for the whimsy of Wonderland, Bobin introduces some real color into the mix. His setpieces are also delivered with a great deal more clarity than Burton's haphazard ones from the first film.

And Sacha Baron Cohen delivers a delightfully unhinged performance as Time. But that's really where even the semi-positives come to a screeching halt. With Burton having used up the narrative of Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass novel in his first Alice film, this film is left to create an entirely new narrative that basically puts all of its chips on time travel as the new plot device that will drive the film.

Predictably, this leads to Alice having a lot of adventures attempting to save Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen from their destinies. Which could have been interesting if both of their performances weren't so horrid and lazy.

The final product is a cliched time travel plot jammed into an Alice in Wonderland movie with some solid direction but some truly horrible helpings of everything else.

Contributor
Contributor

A film enthusiast and writer, who'll explain to you why Jingle All The Way is a classic any day of the week.