π¬ Review: Alice in Wonderland 2 (2025) β Through the Clockwork Veil of Time
Director: Tim Burton
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen
Music by: Danny Elfman
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Fifteen years have passed since Tim Burtonβs Alice in Wonderland (2010) reimagined Lewis Carrollβs whimsical world with a gothic, surreal intensity. Now, in Alice in Wonderland 2 (2025), Burton returns to complete the circle β not just as a storyteller, but as a dream-weaver confronting the inevitable erosion of imagination and time.
The sequel is more introspective, more melancholic, and paradoxically, more alive than ever. It is a fantasy adventure about growing up, losing innocence, and daring to rediscover it before it fades away forever.
π A World Unraveling
The film begins in late 19th-century London, where Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska) has become an explorer, navigating the seas and mapping distant lands. Yet beneath her adventurous surface, she feels the hollow ache of a world that no longer believes in wonder. Society has grown mechanical β men speak of progress and profit, not of dreams or madness.
Her return to Wonderland begins unexpectedly. A cracked pocket watch arrives at her doorstep, ticking backward. The moment she touches it, the familiar swirl of mirrors and clouds engulfs her, and she falls once again into the impossible.
But Wonderland has changed. The once-colorful world is dimming; time has begun to reverse. Rivers flow upward, flowers whisper forgotten words, and the stars rearrange themselves every hour. Time itself is dying, and so are the memories of the creatures who live there.
β³ The Quest for the Lost Hour
Alice soon learns that the great Clock of Ages, hidden deep within the Tower of Hours, has been sabotaged. Its gears are rusting, its pendulum frozen. Without it, Wonderland collapses into timeless chaos β where moments repeat endlessly or vanish altogether.
To save it, Alice reunites with her dearest friend, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who is losing fragments of his identity. His laughter falters, his riddles no longer rhyme, and his hat β once a symbol of joy β now represents the fading of memory. Deppβs portrayal here is hauntingly beautiful; beneath the layers of eccentricity, thereβs a man terrified of being forgotten by the only world that ever accepted him.
Together, they seek out the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), who now guards a secret she can no longer keep β a dark spell cast long ago that connects her to her sister, the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter). The Red Queen, exiled beyond the Mirror Lands, has discovered a way to manipulate time itself, hoping to rewrite her own past and undo her greatest humiliation.
Her lair is one of Burtonβs most mesmerizing creations: a palace built entirely of broken mirrors, reflecting infinite versions of herself β the cruel queen, the lonely child, the desperate sister. Bonham Carterβs performance transcends villainy; sheβs tragic, layered, almost Shakespearean in her longing for redemption.
π A Visual and Emotional Symphony
Visually, Alice in Wonderland 2 is Tim Burton at his most mature. The film retains his signature surrealism β spiraling castles, distorted skies, creatures that blend nightmare and beauty β yet every image feels purposeful, rooted in emotional symbolism.
The cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel paints Wonderland as both dream and decay. The Time Desert, a wasteland of frozen sand and shattered hourglasses, mirrors Aliceβs fear of aging. The Hall of Melting Clocks echoes DalΓ but with Burtonβs darker twist β clocks drip into oblivion as characters lose their sense of self.
Each environment represents a fragment of Aliceβs mind, and as she journeys through them, she confronts pieces of her own lost innocence. Wonderland, in this sequel, becomes a metaphor for imagination itself β dying, unless we fight to preserve it.
π The Themes Beneath the Madness
At its heart, Alice in Wonderland 2 is about memory, time, and identity.
It asks: What happens to wonder when we grow old? Do we forget the magic, or does the magic forget us?
Aliceβs arc is deeply human. Sheβs no longer a curious girl chasing a rabbit, but a woman haunted by her inability to fit into either world β the sensible world of adults or the nonsensical world of dreams. In saving Wonderland, she must also forgive herself for abandoning it.
The Mad Hatterβs fading madness becomes a symbol of fading creativity β the cost of conformity and timeβs relentless pull toward order. Even the Red Queenβs obsession with rewriting history reflects humanityβs eternal struggle to escape regret.
πΆ Elfmanβs Timeless Score
Danny Elfmanβs score deserves its own paragraph.
He intertwines haunting choral pieces with sweeping orchestral themes, echoing the ticking of clocks and the hum of gears. The main motif β a lullaby played in reverse β captures the entire filmβs essence: beauty turning back on itself, time collapsing inward.
The music doesnβt just accompany the film; it breathes through it, giving emotional shape to every surreal frame.
π Performances that Transcend Fantasy
Mia Wasikowska delivers her finest performance as Alice. Gone is the naive dreamer β what remains is a woman scarred by reality, rediscovering the courage to believe again. Her chemistry with Johnny Depp feels older, more tender, almost tragic.
Helena Bonham Carter commands every scene, balancing cruelty and sorrow with poetic precision. Anne Hathaway, ethereal yet guilt-ridden, brings moral depth to the White Queen. And Sacha Baron Cohen (returning as Time himself) lends an otherworldly gravitas, portraying the embodiment of inevitability with weary compassion.
π°οΈ Final Thoughts
Alice in Wonderland 2 (2025) is not just a sequel β itβs an evolution. It dares to be melancholic where the first was whimsical, philosophical where the first was visual. Burton transforms a childrenβs fantasy into a meditation on adulthood, regret, and the price of growing up.
The result is breathtaking, emotional, and deeply personal. The filmβs final act β without spoiling β delivers one of the most haunting endings Burton has ever crafted: a reminder that time may take everything, but wonder never truly dies.
β Rating: β
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β (9/10)
Verdict: A visually stunning, emotionally profound masterpiece β Tim Burtonβs return to Wonderland is both a farewell and a rebirth of imagination itself.