Review of Mirror Mirror (2012) by Tyson H — 19 Feb 2013

In a Shocking Plot Twist, Sean Bean Isn't Dead.

I must confess that I liked [i]The Brothers Grimm[/i]. I'm a huge fan of the books of Robin McKinley. I do believe that the "fairy tale adaptation" can be done well. It's just that somehow, it never is. There are two adaptations of "Snow White" up for Oscars this year; they're actually competing in Costume Design. (I won't be watching [i]Snow White and the Huntsman[/i]; that's a movie that begs to be watched in company and laughed at, and Graham confesses that he'll probably like it. Because, you know, universally reviled.) I'm not even going to bother with [i]Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters[/i], and the only appeal of [i]Jack the Giant Slayer[/i] is the cast. I think the sudden crop of them stems from the popularity of [i]Wicked[/i], but then, why haven't we had a movie of [i]Wicked[/i] yet? And I really don't think we need Angelina Jolie as Maleficent; she won't be better than Eleanor Audley.

So you think you know the story of "Snow White"? You almost certainly do, but it won't be all that much help here. We do have the Wicked Queen (Julia Roberts) and the lovely young maiden, Snow White (Lily Collins). There are seven dwarfs (Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, Danny Woodburn, Sebastian Saraceno, Martin Klebba, and Ronald Lee Clark) and a handsome prince, Alcott (Armie Hammer). There's even a magic mirror, though it appears to be a bit more metaphorical than actual, and on the other side is Lisa Roberts Gillan, the queen's reflection. But the queen here isn't so much interested in being the fairest of them all, though certainly that's important to her, but she's more interested in money. She's taxed the poor about as much as she can, and she needs to marry a rich man. Prince Alcott is held up by bandits on his way in, and he ends up at court, and he falls in love with Snow, and the queen falls in love with his bank account. And Snow is sent off to be killed by Brighton (Nathan Lane), because she's in the way of the queen's marriage plans.

Confused yet? The thing is, there are three or four bits of the story of "Snow White" that everyone expects us to hit, and we miss half of them. Director Tarsem Singh says that Julia Roberts becomes "a hag" at the end and that "it's pretty gross," though she mostly looks to be a normal seventy-year-old--maybe even younger. And it's after the wedding, after she's pretty much been defeated, that she brings out the apple. The dwarfs aren't miners; they're bandits who steal from the rich and give to themselves, until Snow steps up for her people. Snow becomes their leader, I guess because she's a princess. She is then both beaten and demeaned by Alcott, to my dismay. He actually spanks her with his blade. Clearly, despite the defiantly unplucked eyebrows of Lily Collins, this is not a film that is [i]much[/i] interested in feminism, for all the talk of what Snow can do for herself.

Miraculously, it even kept getting worse. I am saddened to learn that the music was by Alan Menken, himself no stranger to the adaptation of fairy tales. He's got eight Academy Awards--that's three more than John Williams--but he seems to have slipped from "some of the best Disney-movie music in a generation" to "bad sitcom." (In fact, six of those are for fairy tale adaptations, leaving only his inexplicable two for [i]Pocahontas[/i].) The decision was made to do the "ting!" a couple of times when characters smile, and you can't do that anymore, ironically or not. Vast amounts of the dialogue was really terrible. The plot, as I said, only tangentially touches the story of "Snow White" and basically never makes sense. The acting wasn't bad, but there also wasn't a lot anyone could do to be really good. Apparently, Lily Collins auditioned for two different "Snow White" movies, and I will say she's a better actress than the one who got the role in the other one. That doesn't mean this is a good movie.

Yes, okay. But those costumes really are striking. Silly, a lot of them, but striking. There's some interesting colour choice; Singh is mostly a director of commercials, with this only his fourth feature, but his best-known non-feature work is probably the "Losing My Religion" video, rightly acclaimed as the best of that year. Probably the best that R.E.M. ever did. And I'll admit it's hardly surprising that a man named Tarsem Singh is inclined to throw a random Bollywood-style dance number in at the end. Why not? There are some decent bits to this movie, but mostly, it's a slog. A pretty, pretty slog. Goodness knows I have seen worse movies; I have seen worse movies in the last week. (I think I'm more inclined to give spoilers for lousy movies, on the grounds that you shouldn't waste your time with them anyway.) I mean, at least this one [i]is[/i] pretty, right? If it wins Costume Design on Sunday, I won't be terribly upset. Heck, I've seen worse Oscar-winning films.