Great stories never die and that’s definitely the case for Lewis Caroll’s underworld magical menagerie adventures, which will be getting yet another big screen outing in Alice Through The Looking Glass in 2016. Following up on the sheer psychedelic craziness of Alice In Wonderland in 2010, it will return Mia Wasikowka (Lawless) to the eponymous role, along with Johnny Depp (Black Mass) as The Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter (Suffragettes (2015)) as the Red Queen.
There have been a host of adaptations of the original books, first published in 1865 and 1851, with efforts ranging from Disney’s 1951 cartoon classic to the live theatre production, wonder.land, featuring music from Damon Albarn. It doesn’t look like the influence of the stories is going to lose its sway any time soon and with the sequel to Tim Burton’s 2010 outing on the way, things appear to be getting freakier and freakier for the little big heroine, Alice.
Release date
Alice Through The Looking Glass has been confirmed of a US and UK release date of the 27th May 2016, making it one of the first big cinema releases of the summer. As with the previous outing, visuals are set to be an impressive feature of the film, which means it’s a film that might look a whole lot cooler in either 3D or at an IMAX cinema. Although, if you follow Alice’s devil may care attitude to pharmacology you’ll probably see things jumping out of the screen whether you want to or not.
Story
Following the climactic battle at the end of Alice In Wonderland, Alice grows a little older and wiser, but on her return to Wonderland she finds that things have been going all kinds of wrong in her absence. The main problem is The Mad Hatter, who has started to turn a little towards the macabre side of the dark-light spectrum, leaving Alice to search for answers from Time itself. With dangerous directions ahead and behind her, she must find a way to restore balance to the flip-side of the magical land.
Cast
In addition to Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsleigh, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helen Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, the cast also includes Sasha Baron Cohen as Time and Anne Hathaway (Interstellar) as the White Queen, both of whom starred together in Les Misérables. Rhys Ifans has been cast as the Mad Hatter’s dear old dad and Matt Lucas (Paddington) is back as both Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Stephen Fry (The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies) plays the voice of the Cheshire Cat, Alan Rickman (Die Hard) is Absolem the Caterpillar, Michael Sheen (Far From The Madding Crowd) is the White Rabbit, Timothy Spall (The King’s Speech) takes on Bayard, the Bloodhound, Paul Whitehouse is the March Hare and Barbara Windsor makes for the cutest little Dormouse in Wonderland, all returning from Alice In Wonderland. Toby Jones (The Secret Agent) is the latest recruit to the film.
Production
While Tim Burton isn’t back as the director for Alice Through The Looking Glass (2016), he is one of the producers, alongside Joe Roth, Jennifer Todd and Suzanne Todd. Instead, James Bobin has been appointed as the director. His previous credits include Da Ali G Show, co-creating The Flight Of The Concords, and the two recent outings for The Muppets, so maybe there will be more of a comedy edge to the new film. Legendary Disney writer, Linda Woolverton (Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King), has written the screenplay once again.
First impression
If the 2010 movie is anything to go by, the sequel should be a darkly colourful adaptation of the Lewis Carol original. It’s got the benefit of having some of the most memorable characters of all time, a mad-cap story and a stellar cast, so it shouldn’t really be anything other than brilliant. The fact that Tim Burton is not in the director’s chair this time could have an impact, but hopefully his influence has been taken into account enough to follow up on Alice In Wonderland well.
