Mirror Mirror Review

"Mirror mirror on the wall, which Snow White movie coming out this year will be the best one of all?"

"What my dear boy? Why do you need to even ask this question? There really is only one Snow White movie coming out this year because the other one is a complete joke of a movie that is an embarrassment to the Snow White franchise. If it weren't for a few select good aspects, it would be an utter pile of garbage."

Yes, I saw Mirror Mirror recently on a fun Mother/Son outing with my mom and my opinion of it wasn't very high at all, if you didn't catch that from my first paragraph. Now if you didn't know this already, there is a slight Snow White fetish this year in Hollywood with two Snow White movies coming out this year. The more broad fairy tale fetish will continue next year with spin offs of Hansel and Gretel as well as Jack and the Bean Stalk. But I digress. This Snow White was intended as a light-hearted movie directed towards the younger crowd while the other is a Lord of the Rings esque movie directed towards adults. Mirror Mirror is the one that is directed towards kids.

The first issue I have correlates with the idea that this is a kids movie. Yes it is PG and no it doesn't deserve PG-13, but if I'm a parent, I'm not taking my younger kids to see this and I'm certainly not buying it as a movie for my 5 year old to watch over and over because it really isn't appropriate for that young age. A few examples. Snow White's outfits all show off cleavage. The dwarfs like making their captives take off their clothes, no there is no nudity and yes all the victims of this are wearing long underwear, but it still happens. One of these scenes has two males hanging chest to chest in their underwear. Then there is a scene where Julia Roberts is getting ready for the day and in what I guess is her wanting to feel evil, she spreads bird poop all over her face and uses several bugs like worms and scorpions to help her prepare. She is covered good enough with a few towels, but does show off a lot of skin in the process. Then there is a scene where the prince is acting like a dog due to a potion and jumps on the queen while she is on her bed and starts liking her in the face. Just small dumb things like that are scattered throughout the movie that are not a big deal for mature audiences, but for younger kids that the movie is directed to its not appropriate. When I get married and have a family, this is not a movie I will ever buy for my kids to watch.

Moving on, I have more things to complain about. First the story. I don't need to tell you what its about. Its Snow White. But if this were my first ever exposure to Snow White, I may never want to watch a Snow White movie again. The way they did things just made it dumb. I didn't like the story in this, even though I like Snow White. Part of the problem was the cast. Ok, scratch that. A huge part of that was the cast. It just didn't fit. Julia Roberts as the evil queen was just completely awful. The prince bothered me. There was a scene where the Queen turns his personality into that of a dog and throws something out of the window for him to fetch. In that scene I was hoping he would jump out of the window and kill himself. He certainly had zero chemistry with Snow White. The queen's little henchman was annoying. He got turned into a cockroach halfway through. I was really hoping he would get smashed.  On top of that, the script was overly cheesy and bad. It tried to be funny the whole movie and I think I chuckled once or twice and that was it. Really dumb. For the most part, the acting was also terrible. Especially Julia Roberts. Boy she bothered me. I think this could easily be the worst movie that she has ever done. My seven year old niece could've made a more convincing evil queen. And the costume work? Not horrible. But a little overdone and fake at times I thought. Yes I know that this is not supposed to be a action movie like Snow White and the Huntsman, but the battle scenes in this movie could've been a whole lot better.

Going into this movie, I had very low expectations. Was it as bad as I thought it would be? Surprisingly no. It's not the worst movie of the year so far. Those of you who liked the movie and are getting frustrated that I am doing nothing but ripping the movie to shreds, take a sigh of relief as I will now mention things I enjoyed, proving that I am not being biased and just hating it because I thought I would. The cinematography in this movie was great. Also along that lines, the visuals were also quite good and the music was decent. There was also a few characters that I did like. Now a quick minor *SPOILER ALERT*, the best actor in the movie by far is Sean Penn. Sadly enough, he only gets like ten minutes of screen time at the end of the movie. He does an excellent job and portrays his character quite well (check out IMDb if you want to know who he plays). Also a close second is Snow White. I really think Lily Collins is quite fantastic. She was believable and likable, unlike the rest of the cast. Also in the classic line "who is the fairest of them all?" she certainly fits those requirements. Now I am not a huge enough Snow White nerd to know how old Snow White is supposed to be in the story, but in this story Snow White is 18. Despite being 23, Lily Collins did look like an 18 year old girl and to me that seemed a bit young, but maybe that's how its supposed to be. Her eyebrows are also a bit big, but that's just me being nit picky. She did a great job. It was just one of those times where you have a great actor in the midst of a terrible film and you kinda feel bad for them because of it. I would say that they should flip-flop Snow Whites and use Lily in the Huntsman and Kristen Stewart in this one (she would fit well with by continuing the trend in Mirror Mirror of horribly casted characters), but I don't think she would quite fit in the role of hardcore warrior Snow White (I don't think Kristen Stewart does either, but that's a subject for another day). Light hearted fairly tale Snow White fits her well. Last but not least I have to mention the dwarfs. By the end of the movie they actually grew on me and were my only means of laughter from the film.

So that is that. If you are thinking of seeing this movie, I would personally recommend skipping it and saving your money for what should be a much better Snow White movie with Snow White and the Huntsman. If you insist on seeing it, then at least do me a favor and wait for the Dollar Theater or Red Box. I give this movie a 4 out of 10, mostly because of Lily Collins.