Are you ready to go back to Wonderland? Well maybe you shouldn't pack your bags quite yet.
Alice Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to 2010's Alice in Wonderland, hits theaters this weekend with Mia Wasikowska back as Alice and Johnny Depp back as his timid Mad Hatter. But it seems some of the magic is gone this time around. Critics are not fans of the new film, which currently has a low 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes. We rounded up the best critic slams of the movie. Curioser and curioser.
"Six years after Tim Burton put a trippy spin on Alice in Wonderland, the mediocre sequel matches the original’s hypercolor palette and insane visuals, though it can’t cobble together an equally engaging plot or even a coherent one." (Read the full review here.)
"The movie is gaudy, loud, complacent, and vulgar. As such, it's acceptable entertainment for 21st-century children and audiences who want to be treated like children."
"Hugely expensive and extravagantly stupid, Alice Through the Looking Glass is just one more silly Hollywood mashup, an innocent fantasy morphed into a noisy would-be blockbuster."
NPR:
"A whimsy-free business, in Wonderland, of all places! There could be no more ironic stand-in for today's franchise-mad movie marketplace, here to lop the heads off any and all creative personnel."
"'I fear I may never see you again,' Alice laments to the Hatter toward the end of the movie. After one sequel too many, we can only hope she's right."
"Alice, of Alice in Wonderland fame, is dead to me now. Alice Through the Looking Glass has killed her off as a viable character for a movie."
"If you see Alice Through the Looking Glass, prepare to lean forward in your seat just to stay awake."
"Alice Through the Looking Glass is a movie for anyone who ever skimmed a passage of Lewis Carroll and thought, 'This is great, but it could use a bit more Terminator.'"
And sometimes, like the Philadelphia Inquirer, you just have to tell it like it is:
"A dull, formulaic theme-park ride whose only purpose is to make more pots of money."
You can watch the trailer below and (maybe) go see it this weekend to decide for yourself.
