Alice Through the Looking Glass

Captain Alice (Mia Wasikowska) returns from a sea voyage to find herself aced out of her command by an ex-suitor (Leo Bill). Worse, her old friend the Hatter (Johnny Depp) is in trouble, and Alice must go time-hopping through Wonderland to save him. Only scattered shreds of Lewis Carroll survive in Linda Woolverton’s neofeminist screenplay, so don’t rely on this if you have to do a book report. And the movie is top-heavy with CGI, like icing on a gaudy wedding cake. But under that vulgar exterior beats the heart of spirited fantasy adventure, directed with buoyant panache by James Bobin and with a high-powered cast (Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifans, Timothy Spall, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen) under layers of makeup and computer enhancement. J.L.