Alice Through the Looking Glass (1998)

Sorry, this movie sucks

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

You know your book is poorly adapted when Disney is still considered the gospel... And that's how Alice is. Nobody gets it right, but this film comes close.The Looking Glass is a world where everyone is speaking in puns, riddles, logical inversions, and nonsense poetry. There's almost no plot or character. It is random, sometimes funny, sometimes tender, sometimes boring, sometimes creepy or insane. It passes over you like a dream, but the best parts endure...Yes, the special effects are dumb. The scenes are cheap. Alice is a hot 20-something instead of cute 7 and a half. blah blah blah... It doesn't matter!What matters is perfect delivery of great lines. Like watching Shakespeare, it all comes down to what the actors say and how they say it.

In 1871, A deacon logician at Oxford published a sequel to his surprisingly popular children's story. In that original, he had dabbled in the mix of logic and mysticism that he thought respectable. Fortunately for him, it was characterized as the sort of nonsense genre created by Edward Lear. But he was deeply disturbed in the years that followed as the Church and what came to be called spiritualism diverged. So to make amends to his God, and to deflate the Kabbalistic origin of the first work, he formulated something with much the same structure and tone, but without the magic.This work was based on conundrums created by the symmetries in the world. It became as popular as the first. His later works tried harder to distance himself from divination and became tepid Christian allegories. "Through the Looking-glass" was so successful that it and the original Alice are often merged as if they were seamless. The symmetries in the later work are easier to quote, so the looking-glass symbology and structure is re-used and quoted far more than the dangerous and slippery original Alice.In 1979, auteur Raoul Ruiz made "The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting," a remarkable film, using the Alice structure as a template for narrative folding and a painting as the conflation of both book and mirror.Based on this, cinematic novelist Arturo Pérez-Reverte, wrote a rather complex and ambitious novel. "The Flanders Panel" published in 1990. In 1994, filmmaker Jim McBride continued on of his two film careers, the one where he starts with extremely ambitious material, making a mainstream film based on Pérez-Reverte's novel. While the novel was inherently cinematic, McBride added an extra dimension: the folds of inner narrative, of dreams and fantasies were mapped onto the body of the on screen detective, with insight conflated with nudity. To accomplish this insofar as he could, he found a quite beautiful and intuitively talented young actress. Like Nastassja Kinski and Asia Argento before her, she grew up in an acting family and genuinely knew how to map narrative on her body, unafraid to be as sexually complex as possible. Together, Kate Beckinsale and McBride made an interesting if not profoundly successful film.Like Kinski and Jovovich, Beckinsale would go on to make films directed by lovers, films that would shamelessly exploit this talent. But in between her First Alice and her leathered vampire phase, she was Alice in a literal film version of the book. Well, it is not quite literal in that we have to explain why a redheaded sexual being is in this looking-glass world, and plot accommodations are made based on the Pérez-Reverte model.This film is a disaster, an utter disaster if you take it as it comes. It has none of the magic of the book, though the language and images are used exactly. It has none of engagement that other experiments have with whatever mix of mystery and sex they use. And though it experiments with cinematic inner visions, the devices used are from Terry Gilliam and all utterly fail.But if you see it in this greater context of Kate's mother, the Lewis Carroll cover-up and deliberately obfuscated magic; if you see it as overtly sexual but with the sex completely hidden: homeopathic seduction, then it works amazingly well. Alice as a redhead!Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Are there redeeming features here? Because I can't find them. This film is horrible on just so many levels.The set design is shoddy to the point that it looks like a high school performance for the most part (despite the assembly of a great cast of English character actors - Ian Holm, Steve Coogan, Kate Beckinsale as Alice - we know where the money went then).The cinematography is awful, constantly leaving the viewer second guessing the possible motivation for the camera changes - Blair Witch style hand-held becomes a staple for some reason, but why? Are we meant to be scared? I mean, hey, I was...but not for the right reasons.The script is not so bad, but then how could it fail, coming from such a magnificent text to begin with. Rather, the problem is the pacing and lack of action - how often do we need to sit, bored and restless, as the actors and camera sit statically in front of us, reading slab after slab of text? This is supposed to be a film, a dynamic movement - for the love of God give me some movement.There is just so much bad to be said about this film that it's not worth going on. Oh, in case you haven't quite figured it out yet, don't see this film. Go rent the Disney animated version of the original Alice instead, or, better yet - read the book.

Warning: Contains possible spoilers for anyone not familiar with Lewis Carroll's book Alice Through the Looking Glass. (Are there such people?)This is one of the best, if not THE best versions of Through the Looking Glass I've ever seen. Far truer to the story than most, it isn't the usual mish-mash of both books that so many portrayals are. It was, however, disappointing that so little of the book was included. Still one must take what one is given.Visually beautiful, the scenery draws the viewer in. The film presents in a more dreamlike, even psychedelic, manner than the other versions. Much more in keeping with the book.Well-acted by everyone involved, especially Kate Beckinsale (Alice) and Sean Phillips (Red Queen). The venerable actors Geoffry Palmer (White King), and Sir Ian Holm (White Knight) provide touching and amusing performances, and all provide splendid and new interpretations of their characters.Speaking of the Red Queen, her costume, though a great departure from the standard interpretation was amazing, as were all the costumes. I especially liked the way Alice's clothing changed throughout, enhancing the surreal feel of the film.One might wish to quibble with the choice of having Alice as the mother drifted off to sleep while reading the story to her daughter. But I find it a refreshing change and quite in keeping with the spirit of the book. As adults, who wouldn't like to re-live the wonder and amazement of being a 7-year-old first being introduced to Carroll's Wonderland.All in all, a film worth seeing again, especially with older children.