The story of the beautiful young girl with skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood is one that has been enjoyed for generations. Snow White was Disney’s very first princess, so it would only make sense that movie producers everywhere would want to recreate the magic that is the tale of heroine that fell into a deep slumber because of a poisonous apple.
And thus resulted the disaster of a movie called “Mirror Mirror”.
“Mirror Mirror” is a remake of Snow White which revamps the princess as a fearless warrior. Yet the PG flick, which premiered Mar. 30, was neither a classic nor an original. It was sacrilege to its Disney roots and extremely adolescent in its attempt to find an identity for itself.
In a very general sense, the movie tells the story of Snow White (Lily Collins) and her evil stepmother (Julia Roberts) who runs the desolate remnants of what may nominally be called a kingdom. Snow White does meet her prince in the woods and gets knocked out by a tree branch, initially fulfilling the role of the damsel in distress. From here, the similarity with the Disney classic ends. Snow White’s prince is portrayed as a puppy-like victim of the Queen’s evil ways. This may seem like a nice twist to the story, but the movie’s attempt to add flair to the fairytale by promoting “girl power” only succeeded at being thoroughly cliché.
In addition to a lackluster storyline, “Mirror Mirror” is an aesthetic disappointment. It is obvious where the production crew used tangible sets instead of animation, as much of the digitalization is so poor that Snow seems to live in a Photoshop viewing window instead of in a magical kingdom.
Lily Collins‘ unconvincing performance does not make the movie much easier to watch. Her excessive fawning over the prince and her self-righteous protests against the thieving ways of the dwarves could dissuade little girls into reconsidering their princess role models. Julia Roberts may perhaps be the only redeeming factor in the whole movie, as her solid portrayal of a scheming antagonist provides intermittent comic relief (“And of course her skin is white; she never sees the sun.”) to long periods of monotony.
Though much of the movie was an obituary to the fond thoughts a viewer might have previously had of Snow White, “Mirror Mirror” does indeed end on a satisfactory happily ever after. Despite underwhelming rising action, the ending of the movie is a pleasant twist to the normal prince-marries-princess storyline. Though of course, that must also happen for this to be a Disney spin-off.
Ultimately, the fifteen minutes of happy ending does not make up for the other 96 minutes of tedium. By the end, even Roberts’ constant gaze at the mirror on the wall loses its fairytale appeal.
Yet perhaps it would do the producers of “Mirror Mirror” some good to take another look.
