Mirror, Mirror (2012)

  

Because I'm a great fan of fairy tales, a retelling of the classic Snow White story, piqued my interest as soon as I saw the trailers. Yes, it looked silly and perhaps even a bit cheesy but Mirror, Mirror (2012) went on my "To See Someday" list.

A couple weeks ago my siblings and I found it available on Netflix and decided to have a movie night. We all laughed at the abundance of humor and funny characters, remarked over the amazing costumes and mostly enjoyed this film.

Story: After a beloved King vanishes, his ruthless wife seizes control of the kingdom and keeps her beautiful 18-year-old stepdaughter, Snow White, hidden away in the palace. But when the princess attracts the attention of a charming and wealthy visiting prince, the jealous Queen banishes the girl to a nearby forest. Taken in by a band of rebellious but kindhearted dwarfs, Snow White blossoms into a brave young woman determined to save her country from the Queen. With the support of her new friends, she roars into action to reclaim her birthright and win back her Prince in this magical adventure comedy that will capture the hearts and imaginations of audiences the world over. - from IMDb.com

Script: Does not follow the traditional story of Snow White very closely. Snow White is an innocent manipulated, like everyone else in the kingdom, by the evil Queen. It's when she stands up to the Queen that she is taken to the woods to be killed.   The seven dwarfs are stilt-wearing bandits who steal from the rich because they are outcasts from their society. The prince enters the story early and befriends Snow White but the Queen has designs on his wealth and then it's Snow White's turn to save him. Snow White trains in sword fighting and bandit skills with the dwarfs and eventually fights gigantic puppets and a dragon-like beast sent by the Queen and controlled by her dark magic.   The poisoned apple doesn't come into play until the end of the film and Snow White is smart enough to refuse it - so no princes kissing dead girls in glass coffins either!    

Scenes: Amazing scenery and cinematography. The outside and inside of the palace are grand and extravagant. The dwarfs' cottage is rustic and built inside a fallen tree. The woods are quite mysterious but not too scary. And everything is covered in snow which gives wonderful contrast to the outdoor scenes.

Costumes: The costume designs are all amazing and extravagant! Big kudos to this costume department!   The Queen's dresses are so elaborate and over-the-top but yet gorgeous at the same time. Her skirts are wider than a double door doorway! I watched an interview with Julia Roberts where she said it too at least 15 minutes to get into her costumes, she couldn't go through doorways and one time she pulled a leg muscle trying to turn around in one of her huge dresses!  Snow White's costumes are very sweet and elegant and contrast to the Queen's a bit by being a bit more realistic most of the time (minus her swan costume for the masquerade).  

The other nobles in the Queen's wedding scene are dressed is such amazingly bright colors and bold patterns that actually go together amazingly well.   The prince is taken out of his regal clothing on several occasions and stands bare chested before the Queen ("oh brother!" *rolls eyes*) but when he is wearing clothes his capes, boots and vests are very nice.  The servants' and townspeople's costumes are plain by comparison but still very well done. The dwarfs each have their own personality in their costumes while still fitting in with the same color scheme and their bandit costumes are quite interesting.

Music: Fun, sweet, sweeping and even a waltz song! Written by Alan Menken who has composed for such Disney films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Home On The Range and Tangled! Wow! no wonder the music is good! The film ends in a song and dance number that is sung by Lily Collins who played Snow White - not really my favorite style of music but it works well for the ending. I've been listen to the soundtrack in this YouTube playlist.

A Bit About The Actors:

• Lily Collins as Snow White - I'd only seen Lily in one other film and knew her acting abilities were top notch. She definitely has the Snow White looks with her very dark features and peachy skin. As Snow she was sweet and very fairy tale princess but got upset at the Queen's treachery and stands up for herself. It's easy to like her except for her bold eyebrows.
• Armie Hammer as Princes Alcott - Funny and charming. I'd never seen him in anything before but he made a very good prince. He will play the Lone Ranger in the upcoming Lone Ranger film (which sounds interesting). 
• Julia Roberts as The Queen - I've seen Julia Roberts in a few films over the years and like her okay. She adds a lot of humor to an otherwise over-the-top evil character. She gets a bit obnoxious to me at times but she does have some quite witty lines.
• Nathan Lane as Brighton - The Queen's butler who tries to keep her happy and adds a bit of comic relief. His voice sounded so familiar to me and my siblings, so we looked up his work, found out that he was the voice of Timon in The Lion King, and then it all make sense! "Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase..." He was also in Nicholas Nickleby (2002) as Vincent Crummles but I can't quite place him.
• Sean Bean as The King - Even though he didn't turn up until the end it was great to see a familiar British actor pop up. His role in this was a good guy and it's always great to see him play those, especially when I so want to like him even as Boromir in LOTR or Ian Howe in National Treasure.
• The Seven Dwarfs: Jordan Prentice as Napoleon, Mark Povinelli as Half Pint, Joe Gnoffo as Grub, Danny Woodburn as Will Grimm, Sebastian Saraceno as Wolf, Ronald Lee Clark as Chuck "Chuckles" and Martin Klebba as Butcher - I know I've seen a couple of them in things before such as Martin Klebba has been in a couple of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. They all did a fantastic job of portraying their individual characters and working together a a whole to portray a group of rough and tough guys with big hearts. My favorite is probably Half Pint, he's a bit of a ladies man and is always so sweet to Snow White.

My Thoughts: It was good but not as good as I'd expected. I enjoyed it but didn't love it. It's really just another princess/fairy tale film and there's not too much that makes it stand out from other films like it. In many ways it reminds me of Enchanted, Ella Enchanted and a bunch of animated princess films where the prince sets out to rescue the princess and she ends up rescuing him and then living happily ever after. That being said there was a lot of humor that would make me probably want to watch it again some day, just not a "wow factor". The characters and story were only mildly interesting but were fun at the same time.

One very interesting thing I'd like to mention is the remarkable way in which actress Lily Collins resembles classic actress Audrey Hepburn! I'd already seen the resemblance but then in the last scene the costume, hair and makeup departments really seemed to play up her resemblance with the hair and makeup especially.  It would be interesting to see her in a remake of a film such as Sabrina or maybe Roman Holiday. As a side note, Lily Collins is daughter of famous singer/song writer Phil Collins (he wrote and sang the music for Disney's Tarzan).

Would I Recommend It? Probably to most viewing audiences. It's a cute film and it's only rated PG. There is no language that I can recall. Some slight sexual undertones come from the Queen's comments about the Prince's bare chest, her desire to marry him for financial reasons and because he's cute, when the Queen gives the Prince a Puppy Love potion he jumps on her and licks her face, and of course a kiss or two between Snow White and the Prince. There are some elements of dark magic: the Queen has a dark lair that she access by means of magic and talks to her "mirror, mirror on the wall", she uses dark  magic to make giant puppets attack the dwarfs and Snow White in the woods (some humor is thrown in to lighten the mood) and there's a very scary dragon-like beast toward the end that the Queen sends to kill everyone. The scary themes would probably be too much for very young children but otherwise it might be an okay family film. If you like fairy tales then you'll probably really enjoy Mirror, Mirror.

If you're interested you can watch the Mirror, Mirror trailer on YouTube.

Have you seen Mirror, Mirror? What did you think?

Do you like the classic Snow White story?

Do you think Lily Collins resembles Audrey Hepburn?