Once upon a time there lived a beautiful and wicked queen
who sought power and to be the fairest in the land. So she married a king and,
after his death, forced his daughter, the rightful heir to throne, to stay
locked away in her room. But one day the princess grew restless and left her
room and the castle and went into the kingdom to see what the queen had done to
her people. When she saw nothing but poverty and greyness, she confronted the
queen, who then and there considered her a great threat to her rule and sent
her deep into the dangerous forest to be killed. The princess’s name was Snow
White…
When I first heard that there was a film coming out called Mirror Mirror, I guessed that I was
being a little too hopeful that it would be a gritty and stunning visual
adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s classic book. Nevertheless, I escorted myself
to the movies today and took in a viewing of the interesting modern twist on
the classic fairytale, which was both a delight and a demolition.
Once upon a
time there lived a beautiful and wicked queen who sought power and to be the
fairest in the land. So she married a king and, after his death, forced his
daughter, the rightful heir to the throne, to stay locked away in her room. But
on the princess’ 18th birthday, she had finally become restless and
she left her room and ventured out into the kingdom to see what had become of
her people. When she saw nothing but poverty and greyness she confronted the
queen, only to have the queen then and there consider her as such a threat that
she sent the princess into the dangerous woods to be killed by the beast that
dwelt there. The princess’ name was Snow White…
Mirror Mirror was more than just a modern take on a classic
fairytale; it was a complete reworking of the story simply only keeping the
memorable characters of the heroine, the wicked queen, the charming prince, and
the seven dwarves.
If there is one word that can verily describe this film,
it’s refreshing. The characters were tweaked in a number of ways: there is a
feministic influence that focuses on the characters of Snow White and the
Queen, not to mention a biting cat fight of that old adage “age before beauty”.
The dwarves were changed altogether and provided the film with much of its
heart and humour. And Prince Charming had the subtle piss taken out of him, on
more than one occasion becoming the token damsel in distress.
The script was very
good; very clever with biting wit and humour and Julia Roberts’ delivery of her
punch lines was commendable.
I have to say too that the opening sequence that
tells the back-story and introduces the characters and current setting was
really lovely and wholly original; a form of animation that used the look of
china dolls. It’s hard to describe, go see the film.
Starring Julia Roberts,
Lilly Collins, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe
Gnoffo, Danny Woodburn, Sebastian Saraceno, Martin Klebba, Ronald Lee Clark,
Robert Emms, Mare Winningham, and Sean Bean, Mirror Mirror is a delightful fairytale twist filled with action,
adventure, romance, magic, drama, amazing costumes, and a fairytale ending. I
think I will have to see it a second time before deciding whether or not it is
a keeper, but I did quite enjoy it.
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