“Mirror Mirror” – Movie Review

 

 

This weekend, my movie class had a bonus screening of  the new comedy, “Mirror Mirror”, starring Julia Roberts. 

 

Synopsis

When Snow White is thrown out of the palace by her evil stepmother, she is rescued by a group of dwarves – but can they help her defeat The Queen and take her rightful place in the kingdom? 

 

Story

Long after her father The King has turned up missing, Snow White (Lily Collins) is constantly mistreated by her vain and envious evil stepmother The Queen (Roberts). Shortly following Snow White’s 18th birthday, The Queen orders her murdered by one of her courtiers, Brighton (Nathan Lane).  However, Brighton – loyal to Snow White’s kindly father The King – cannot bring himself to do the deed, so he merely takes her out into the woods and sets her free, urging her to escape. 

Lost and without shelter, Snow White is found by a bunch of dwarves who make a living by robbing whoever is unfortunate enough to wander into the woods when they are on the prowl.  Teaching her the skills of their trade, she soon sets out to help them rob travelers in the woods.  Running out of money, The Queen realizes that she needs to find a new source of income since her poverty-stricken subjects are themselves low on funds and cannot be taxed any longer.  When she meets the handsome young Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer), she cons him into drinking a love potion so he’ll marry her – something that wouldn’t normally occur to him because the Prince has already met the real object of his affections, Snow White. 

After kidnapping Prince Alcott at the wedding, Snow White and the dwarves bring him back to their lair in the woods.  Seeing that he is under some kind of spell that has caused him to fall in love with The Queen, they set out to find a way to break the spell so he’ll return to normal – realizing that only true love will snap him out of it, Snow White gives him her first kiss and they immediately fall in love.  But when The Queen uses the magical powers of her prized mirror’s reflection to try to kill Snow White, will she prevail or can Snow White somehow find a way to survive and return to the palace? 

 

Review

“Mirror Mirror” is replete with CGI, as its opening sequence setting up the story prepares you for – seeing these effects, you almost might feel as though you may be watching a video game rather than a movie.  In fact, should you see this film and sit through the credits at its end, you will witness an army of software engineers who make up the extensive CGI team that is responsible for these special effects.  Unfortunately, this is not enough to save the movie which I found to be a bit dreary and dull with funny jokes in its script being few and far between. 

Was it my prejudice against Julia Roberts (I’m not in love with America’s Sweetheart the way the rest of the country seems to be) or my resistance to a kids’ movie that informed my opinion?  Quite frankly, I don’t think it was either one.  Roberts gives a pretty convincing performance as Her Bitchiness and there have been family movies I’ve seen in the recent past that I’ve actually enjoyed (see my review of last year’s “The Muppets” as an example). 

Instead, I think it is just that the story -- despite its attempt to reboot this legendary fairy tale to a more modernized, hip version -- just plods along and is boring even though the filmmakers try to jazz things up a bit with all of the special effects.    Unrelated to the quality of the film, I felt that the actress playing Snow White was a bit disturbing and distracting with her bushy eyebrows – I couldn’t help but thinking that they needed a good tweezing.  “Mirror Mirror” ends with a Bollywood-style musical number which seems a bit out of place – not too much of a shock that it’s probably there because the movie’s director is himself Indian.  Despite all of this, it’ll probably still be a big hit at the box office – on my way out of the theater, I heard a little girl remark to her dad how much she loved the movie and looked forward to seeing it again once it opens.