![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
SFF: Alice Through the Looking Glass
Non-spoilery thought: if you are looking for a movie with a female lead, multiple women having conversations and multiple complicated female-female relationships, women having agency and making their own choices? Yeah, this is the move fandom keeps screaming for.
And given the poor box office response, this is yet another movie Hollywood execs are going to point at and say, "We gave you what you wanted, you didn't watch it, so we know that making more movies like that is worthless to us."
Here's hoping the new Ghostbusters doesn't get added to that list.
However, on with the review/plot discussion/etc.
The movie opens with Alice as a captain. Not just a trader or clerk, but a fucking captain (seriously, at the end of the first movie, I was just thrilled that Alice didn't end up with a Man, since everyone knows that's What Women Want, I was so not expecting her to be a CAPTAIN). And wearing a uniform (be still my heart).
The movie could have ended when the ship docked in England, and I would have been satisfied. That it continued onwards with its message of "Alice is the hero of this film, no she doesn't have a penis, kindly fuck off." was utterly amazing and perfect.
Alice returns to England three years after she left, and she's been missing for a year (they were late due to pirates, ok. These things happen). Meanwhile, life has moved on. Her mentor, Lord Ascot, has died, and her mother has been in Dire Straights. So bad that society is shunning her, and though she and Lady Ascot were friends, she's now uncertain of her welcome.
Cue time for a party (as one requires), and Alice turning up in Oriental finery to scandalize all of Society.
And Alice begins to find that she doesn't fit in a world without a visionary at the helm of the shipping/trading company she's working for. Hamish also has an axe to grind with the woman who embarrassed him by refusing him.
Which is when Underland pays a call, so Alice escapes reality for something more mythic and fun. Only, it's not fun there, either. Her very dear friend has lost his family and is dying of this depression. So, like all good friends, she sets out on a quest to change time.
Only, Time isn't really one for that and objects. Shenanigans occur, the Red Queen turns up to whine a bit and Alice steals a time machine.
Traveling through the past gives her a whole new look at Mirana and Iracibeth and their parents and also the Hatter and his family. There's a life lesson learnt about how we need to hold onto the people we have and love because time is fleeting.
It's sappy, but it totally does the trick for me.
I also found it fascinating how the queens' parents almost seemed incapable of not pitting them against each other. Instead of banding together (as one should, with one's sibling), they were always at each others' throats due to one little lie.
The king and queen, btw, are Richard Armitage and Hattie Morahan, which made me howl with laughter as, dude, Lucas North was king of Underland, and that is so amazingly wrong in all ways. It just is.
Anyway, Alice being Alice, manages to get back to Reality. Unfortunately, Hamish has already been laying the groundwork for this and has her locked up in a mental institution -- this is a Disney kid's film, so of course, it's nothing terrifying as it could have been (a great deal of the movie could have been deeper, but what was there was still bloody impressive for a movie with multiple female characters).
I had two thoughts about the mental institute: 1. Lady Emily from Primeval could have been near. and 2. "hysteria" could have been treated with a vibrator.
Also, Moriarty was Alice's doctor, and I fell over giggling again because, really. He was not quite so bright when not facing Sherlock.
Which is to say, yet again, Alice is mistress of her own destiny and escapes like a badass.
She returns to the Ascot estate (and one wonders why all links to Underland are there), and from there to Underland.
And there she proceeds to lead a rescue and they accidentally lose and break time. And then Alice has to sprint to save time and and...
Of course she manages it. I mean. This is fucking Alice Kingsleigh, of course she wins the day.
And once saved, she marries the Hatter and they have ten children and etc., since that's what women want, right? Lots of babies and a man!
Er...
Except that's not what happens at all.
Instead, Alice says she'll remember him, but she really has to return to her own life. And so she does. And she and then her mother are badasses together.
Because the story actually ends with Alice and her mother sailing off to start the opium wars.
Keeping it in the family is best, after all.
The costuming was ridiculous but excellent, and I really loved the second-to-last piece Alice wore. It was red and black and grey, and I have been wanting to make a vest-thing similar to what she had on, and now I'll feel like I'm copying her. Which is ok, I suppose.
Seriously, I fucking loved this movie and also fucking despair, because this is the sort of movie fandom whines all the fucking time about wanting.
And given the poor box office response, this is yet another movie Hollywood execs are going to point at and say, "We gave you what you wanted, you didn't watch it, so we know that making more movies like that is worthless to us."
Here's hoping the new Ghostbusters doesn't get added to that list.
However, on with the review/plot discussion/etc.
The movie opens with Alice as a captain. Not just a trader or clerk, but a fucking captain (seriously, at the end of the first movie, I was just thrilled that Alice didn't end up with a Man, since everyone knows that's What Women Want, I was so not expecting her to be a CAPTAIN). And wearing a uniform (be still my heart).
The movie could have ended when the ship docked in England, and I would have been satisfied. That it continued onwards with its message of "Alice is the hero of this film, no she doesn't have a penis, kindly fuck off." was utterly amazing and perfect.
Alice returns to England three years after she left, and she's been missing for a year (they were late due to pirates, ok. These things happen). Meanwhile, life has moved on. Her mentor, Lord Ascot, has died, and her mother has been in Dire Straights. So bad that society is shunning her, and though she and Lady Ascot were friends, she's now uncertain of her welcome.
Cue time for a party (as one requires), and Alice turning up in Oriental finery to scandalize all of Society.
And Alice begins to find that she doesn't fit in a world without a visionary at the helm of the shipping/trading company she's working for. Hamish also has an axe to grind with the woman who embarrassed him by refusing him.
Which is when Underland pays a call, so Alice escapes reality for something more mythic and fun. Only, it's not fun there, either. Her very dear friend has lost his family and is dying of this depression. So, like all good friends, she sets out on a quest to change time.
Only, Time isn't really one for that and objects. Shenanigans occur, the Red Queen turns up to whine a bit and Alice steals a time machine.
Traveling through the past gives her a whole new look at Mirana and Iracibeth and their parents and also the Hatter and his family. There's a life lesson learnt about how we need to hold onto the people we have and love because time is fleeting.
It's sappy, but it totally does the trick for me.
I also found it fascinating how the queens' parents almost seemed incapable of not pitting them against each other. Instead of banding together (as one should, with one's sibling), they were always at each others' throats due to one little lie.
The king and queen, btw, are Richard Armitage and Hattie Morahan, which made me howl with laughter as, dude, Lucas North was king of Underland, and that is so amazingly wrong in all ways. It just is.
Anyway, Alice being Alice, manages to get back to Reality. Unfortunately, Hamish has already been laying the groundwork for this and has her locked up in a mental institution -- this is a Disney kid's film, so of course, it's nothing terrifying as it could have been (a great deal of the movie could have been deeper, but what was there was still bloody impressive for a movie with multiple female characters).
I had two thoughts about the mental institute: 1. Lady Emily from Primeval could have been near. and 2. "hysteria" could have been treated with a vibrator.
Also, Moriarty was Alice's doctor, and I fell over giggling again because, really. He was not quite so bright when not facing Sherlock.
Which is to say, yet again, Alice is mistress of her own destiny and escapes like a badass.
She returns to the Ascot estate (and one wonders why all links to Underland are there), and from there to Underland.
And there she proceeds to lead a rescue and they accidentally lose and break time. And then Alice has to sprint to save time and and...
Of course she manages it. I mean. This is fucking Alice Kingsleigh, of course she wins the day.
And once saved, she marries the Hatter and they have ten children and etc., since that's what women want, right? Lots of babies and a man!
Er...
Except that's not what happens at all.
Instead, Alice says she'll remember him, but she really has to return to her own life. And so she does. And she and then her mother are badasses together.
Because the story actually ends with Alice and her mother sailing off to start the opium wars.
Keeping it in the family is best, after all.
The costuming was ridiculous but excellent, and I really loved the second-to-last piece Alice wore. It was red and black and grey, and I have been wanting to make a vest-thing similar to what she had on, and now I'll feel like I'm copying her. Which is ok, I suppose.
Seriously, I fucking loved this movie and also fucking despair, because this is the sort of movie fandom whines all the fucking time about wanting.
no subject
I thought Alice marrying Hatter and having ten babies was just the ending to ever fanfic ever written about the movie pairing.
It must have been sad to hear Alan Rickan's voice one last time. I know it was a shock to hear it in the ads for this movie. I forgot this was one of his last films.
no subject
And to be fair, I did go in not really expecting much, so it didn't have to raise the bar high.
But it did, and I pretty much walked out mumbling, 'How badass was that."
I sort of think part of the "it is bad" might be that a lot of people were expecting it to deliver the Alice/Hatter otp with babies and true love. Which, I will give them, the first movie sort of hinted at? But this one, from the start of their opening scene, was a much more platonic interpretation. It probably doesn't help that Depp is twenty+ years older than Mia Wasikowska.
As for Rickman, it wasn't weird, actually, as I'd totally blanked on him being dead until the dedication over the credits, and then I was sad.
no subject
no subject
It would have been nice, yes. I sort of worry that they would have done a painful "exotic maid/manservant" trope, though. I do think they could have done something with the empress that she mentioned, though. And I did get the sense (and I was probably reading into it) that Alice didn't view China and its people as "strange savages" but more "people who are a business opportunity."
(maybe if they make a third movie, they can set it in China with some sort of Quest)
no subject
no subject
Well, and also basing it off the fact that there is only one theatre in driving distance still showing it in Milwaukee (it's not even been out a month, but Captain America, which has been out since April, and X-Men, which came out the same week? Yeah, they're still showing all over) - so I may be a bit bitter about that.
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I feel they could do an entire movie about the Queens' backstories and sibling rivalry, but what they showed was pretty interesting.
no subject
no subject
The only way it makes sense is that the story people wanted was the Star-Crossed True Love of Alice and Hatter, and since that's what it's not, everyone hates it.