Review: 'Alice Through the Looking Glass,' a curious sequel

Screenwriter Linda Woolverton ("Beauty and the Beast") has again disposed of the source material in favor of something more linear — a story about Alice (Mia Wasikowska) looking for Hatter's (Johnny Depp) family.

Director James Bobin's ("The Muppets") film trudges on through the lushly designed world answering questions we never asked, like, "What was the Mad Hatter's childhood like?" And, "why does the Red Queen have such a large head?" In other words, it's an Underland origin story.

The nightmarish Hatter, who has developed a more pronounced (and annoying) lisp, is wallowing in life-threatening depression (manifested in combed hair, a sicklier pallor and a grown up wardrobe) because he's found an object that makes him believe his family is alive.

Time talks a big game and can also decide when someone's time is up, but his own command is dependent on a larger than life clock that's powered by another device which also functions as a time travel machine.

Excitement and wonder are fairly hard to conjure up when your Mad Hatter is consumed with daddy issues, your protagonist is nonchalant about everything, and the oddities of this world are suddenly getting scientific explanations and backstories that really only show how awfully ordinary everything once was.

Alice Through the Looking Glass," a Walt Disney Pictures release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America for "fantasy action/peril and some language.