Movies like alice through the looking glass

#Movies like alice through the looking glass movie
#Movies like alice through the looking glass free

Ishtar вЂ™s budget ballooned to $50 Million dollars and it took in only $14 Million, killing a the directorвЂ™s career. Seven years later, director Elaine May thought that Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty would be funny as a hapless songwriting duo who get involved in a Middle Eastern guerrilla war. The fiasco caused the studio United Artists to collapse. The critical backlash to CiminoвЂ™s hubris led to the film making only $3.5 million at the box office. HeavenвЂ™s Gate, an even grander Western epic, went spectacularly over budget, costing $44 million dollars.

#Movies like alice through the looking glass free

If itвЂ™s dry wit youвЂ™re after, you probably shouldnвЂ™t be at the multiplex in the first place.In 1978, Michael Cimino took home the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards for his epic, The Deer Hunter, and was thus given a free pass to make whatever he wanted next. Rarely (as when the script rhymes вЂњdafterвЂќ and вЂњlaughterвЂќ) does it even hint at CarrollвЂ™s pleasing whimsy. (I thought the whole вЂњturned to stoneвЂќ thing was supposed to be kind of immutable.)ДЄs an adventure, everything comes a bit too easily to Alice, and the filmвЂ™s message - girls can do anything! - is bland. The scene in which everybody turns to stone is magnificent, even if it turns out to be yet another bogus gimmick. TimeвЂ™s realm is mystical and scary, the HatterвЂ™s chapeau-shaped abode is nutty enough to be approved by Willy Wonka, and strangely endearing little beasties are everywhere. So the screenplay (by Linda Woolverton) isnвЂ™t exactly heaving with brilliant ideas, but it works well enough as a blank canvas against which the special-effects team goes bonkers. Also there is a megadispute over some crumbs spilled under the bed when the two were princesses.

The latter, it turns out, got her swollen head when she bumped it on concrete. Instead she discovers secrets about the long-standing feud between the sisters the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter). Thanks to a Jules Verne-ish gadget called a chronosphere, Alice sails across the oceans of time hoping to turn back the clock to save the Sad HatterвЂ™s family from annihilation. ItвЂ™s a thin peg upon which to hang the sequel to 2010вЂ™s вЂњAlice in Wonderland,вЂќ but off we go, as Alice (Mia Wasikowska) confronts Time (Sacha Baron Cohen, this time doing a Werner Herzog accent), an unyielding Prussian despot who, in ending a life, announces, вЂњTimeвЂ™s up.вЂќ Then he takes a pocket watch with a personвЂ™s name inscribed on it and hangs it in a dank, funereal void.

#Movies like alice through the looking glass movie

At no point did I care about anything that was happening (only in the last five minutes does Bobin get around to trying to create some meaningful relationships amid the clatter), but seeking emotional resonance at a blockbuster fantasy movie is starting to seem a little eccentric, like asking to see the wine list at DennyвЂ™s.ДЄfter a prologue in which Alice is a brave sea captain (an early signal that the movieвЂ™s resemblance to Lewis CarrollвЂ™s вЂњAliceвЂќ sequel ends with its title), we go back to Wonderland to find a severely depressed Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who has been rendered miserable because heвЂ™s thinking about his familyвЂ™s long-ago death via an attack by the dragon-like Jabberwock. Just an eye-blink ago this filmвЂ™s director, James Bobin, was making вЂњFlight of the ConchordsвЂќ for HBO before moving on to the distinctly non-gargantuan movie вЂњThe Muppets,вЂќ but вЂњLooking GlassвЂќ redefines digital sumptuousness.

You certainly get your 20 bucks worth of spectacle out of вЂњAlice Through the Looking Glass.вЂќ So breathtaking are the landscapes, so whimsical are the creatures, so marvelous are the marvels that I wanted to give a standing ovation to whoever signed the check to pay for all this. Rated PG (fantasy action, mild peril, rude language).