Mirror Mirror (2012)

Too be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this film. The idea of taking a well known tale and doing a different take on it has been done, including ‘Snow White: A Tale of Terror’, ‘Snow White and the Three Stooges’, ‘Van Helsing’, as well as spoofs such as ‘Airplane!’ and the 2005 remake of ‘The Fog’.

That aside, I do not like Julia Roberts. Despite the fact that she has numerous awards, I think she is one of the worst actresses of all time. She’s bland, she’s wooden, she’s irritating, I just find her awful. Then I found that the dwarf characters had names like Grub and Chuckles.

So going into this, I didn’t really know what to expect. But in all honesty, I actually liked this. Yeah, I know, it’s bizarre. ‘Mirror Mirror’ finds Snow White (Lily Collins) being confined to her room by the evil Queen Clementianna (Julia Roberts), after Snow White’s father (Sean Bean) was killed ten years prior. The Kingdom is suffering financial problems, and the Queen decides to solve this problem by marrying Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer), who just happened to be in town.

While entering the land, Alcott and his assistant (Robert Emms) were robbed by the seven dwarves, which consist of Grimm (Danny Woodburn), Butcher (Martin Klebba), Wolf (Sebastian Saraceno), Napoleon (Jordan Prentice), Half Pint (Mark Povinelli), Grub (Joe Gnoffo) and Chuckles (Ronald Lee Clark). Alcott falls for Snow, so the Queen orders her minion Brighton (Nathan Lane) to kill her, but he decides to let her go free, where she meets up with the dwarves who train her to rob the Queen.

The acting is pretty good. Okay, Lily Collins could have done a better job, but she was pretty good. Hammer was perfectly casted as the cocky Prince. I have to give the way he fought Snow White in a sword fight a special nod, the way he talked and walked away whilst still fighting Snow who’s behind him. And then to humiliate her, he spanks her with his sword. Twice. Classy.

I do have to give Julia Roberts some credit though, she did an excellent job at portraying the Queen’s selfish, cold and calculating side. Yes, Julia Roberts did an excellent job playing Julia Roberts. I bet you were all just waiting for that. But yes, Roberts was actually enjoyable in this, not just as the Queen but as the Mirror too. Actually, I liked how they portrayed the mirror; a reflection of the Queen herself but wise. The Mirror is still cold and calculating, but the character itself is interesting.

But what really makes this film are the Dwarves. They’re funny, they’re competent, they’re just a whole lot of fun. They’re chemistry with the other characters is just fantastic and they themselves were interesting and well thought out characters.

The effects, well, were pretty bad. The castle and the wooden puppet monsters looked really fake and the creature of the forest looked mediocre at best. It was pretty good to see the facial movements of the monster, but overall it was lacking.

All that being said, the film does feel like its dragging. There is a feeling that the film is lacking in some areas and some plot points aren’t explained. What was this darkness that supposedly invaded the land? If people have gone through the forest, why do people fear it? (Spoilers) Why does the creature, when it was ordered to kill Snow White and was eager to follow its order, not? Why does the Queen create this creature?

It’s not the best film, but it’s that bad either. Give it a shot, but be prepared not to fully enjoy it. However, this does have Sean Bean in it, that alone makes this film automatically awesome.