Mirror Mirror Review

Okay, so today I went to see "Mirror Mirror" starring Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Nathan Lane, and  Armie Hammer. Be warned that there ARE spoilers in this review. I will not give away the ending, but there will be spoilers.

The first time I watched the trailer, I thought it was damn adorable, but the more I began to see it and hear about it on the radio, it ended up becoming a nuisance to my everyday life. But today, my grandmother decided  "Hey, I've got the day off, your done with your classes, let's go do something fun like see Mirror Mirror."

So first off I want to talk about the dwarfs.

In complete honesty, I was baffled that she wanted to see it, as for the past month she's been saying that she doesn't want to see it because she doesn't think dwarfs are funny and she doesn't like how they are used for comic relief.

And I agree with her. Look how many Snow White films have been made, and who is the comic relief? Exactly, the dwarfs. Even in the film, Prince Alcott blatantly says that the seven are funny because they are "short, runts, minuscule" and a few other demeaning names. However, they laugh it off and make fun of him for being so original in his insults until he calls them "children". In the theater I was immediately thinking "shit's about to go down" and it does....off screen. Actually not even off screen, we don't even hear what happens. However we are shown the embarrassing aftermath of his lesson in common decency towards others.

This made me happy that the Dwarfs made it clear in the film that they do not like being subjected to such prejudice and idiocy. In the film, they even say what they used to do. One of them was a teacher for God's sake!

Happily they are treated the way all humans should be treated, although it's because Snow White lied. I might be reading a bit too much into this, but the dwarfs are thieves in the film. They were cast out by the evil Queen's law to "get rid of uglies and undesirables".  One of the dwarfs named Half-Pint (there's a reason, and it's not about height.) states that they shouldn't help the townsfolk because the townsfolk didn't help them when the law was posted in the village. It's at this point that they tell Snow White that they weren't always thieves. Examples: Butcher was a butcher (wooow), Half-pint was a bartender in a pub, and Grimm was a teacher.

So let's get into the lie Snow White tells to make people like the dwarfs again. The queen wants to have a party to impress the prince but she's broke and raises taxes to get the money she needs to throw the party. So her right hand man Brighton (Nathan Lane) goes to the village and collects the taxes. He gets the money and then the caravan is attacked by the dwarfs who steal the gold and his clothes and keep the spoils to themselves. Snow White asks where they got the gold and they tell her and she says that they were really stealing from the villagers, so she goes to return it. Right when the mayor of the town tells the people that their gold has been returned the dwarfs show up and Snow White says something along the lines about how the seven are brave valiant soldiers who got them their money back, which isn't really true, and the dwarfs are loved.

Let's take a look at what happened here:

Broke Queen wants to throw party--> money must be taken from villagers---> villagers are starving---->villagers are lied to that an evil beast will kill them and the taxes are being used to keep them safe---> queen's servant takes (steals) gold----> dwarfs steal gold from servant---> snow white steals gold from dwarfs---> gold is given to villagers----> snow white says dwarfs returned the gold to them.

Hey kids guess what! If you ever screw up in life, make sure you have a friend who will make your screw up look good so people will like you!

Anyway, like I said, I'm probably reading into that too much. Anyway that's not even the lesson to be learned. Not remotely close.

So now about the story line:

A queen dies in childbirth, and the baby is spoiled by her father the King. He raises her, teaches her, the land is happy. He realizes however that perhaps he should get remarried. Which he does. For reasons unstated, he goes into the Dark Wood and never returns. The new queen is evil, the land is cursed, there's no money, Snow White is not allowed to go to parties, her only friends are the servants. She is told by the baker that she needs to see what's happening to the kingdom so she goes out into the woods.

A prince and his travel companion are out looking for adventure, and are ambushed by dwarfs posing as giants. The take the possessions, and tie the prince and his travel companion upside down to a tree. Snow White finds them and releases them, then goes to the village where an announcement is being put up that more taxes are needed to save them from the man eating beast in the woods. She returns to the castle where the Baker (who i should have mentioned before is like a mother to her) tells her that a prince is here and the queen is holding a party and that Snow White is to crash it.

At the party the prince and Snow meet again and realize who the other is. The queen sees Snow and has her dragged away. Snow gets confident and calls the queen out on her evil deeds and announces that the kingdom doesn't belong to the queen. The Queen wants her dead and sends her right hand man to take her into the woods and let the beast eat her.

The servant can't do it because the King was always kind to him, so he cuts her bindings and tells her to run. She runs right into a tree and is knocked out and wakes up in the home of the seven dwarfs who let her stay and teach her to fight.

Meanwhile at the castle and kingdom everyone thinks Snow is dead, and the queen asks the magic mirror for a love potion revealing that she used one on the dead King. The mirror tells her that she will eventually pay her dues for using magic, but the queen is angry and doesn't care what the consequences are. The mirror gives her a puppy love potion which turns the prince into a devoted puppy who does agree to marry the queen.

Snow and the dwarfs rescue him and break the spell. The queen is furious and the beast is set out to find Snow and kill her, and I'm going to stop there because the ending WAS phenomenal.

Okay so that's the story. And i hate it. The characters were great, but yeah this story is one of the top retold stories and there wasn't really too much about it that was different others than the prince and this man eating beast. But the film did get a bit dark at time...and kinda risque. A couple times the prince spanks Snow...with a sword...while they are fighting...it has kink written all over it.

The film wasn't bad, but it didn't blow me away at all. One thing I liked about it was that Snow wasn't this...little kid trapped in an 18 year old girls body. She wasn't whimsically floating about frightened of crap that wasn't really there. She had a reason to be scarred. There's a freaking man eating beast in this forest, people, who more than likely killed her father, it's what everyone in this film is afraid of! That's scary shit okay?

Now the acting...I didn't believe for a second that Lily was Snow White. I don't have a clue who she is, but seriously. MAKE UP YOUR MIND ON WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE. First she's talking to animals, then she's breaking rules, then she's unsure of herself, then she's a daredevil, then she's scared as hell, then she's about to die but doesn't seem THAT frightened (IF YOUR ABOUT TO BE EATEN BY A CREATURE YOU CAN'T SEE WOULDN'T YOU BE GOING INSANE?!) then she's a damn housewife who can cook, then she steals, then she's a freaking guidance counselor, and just LAJDFLAKSJ! I'm sorry but NO. This character was beyond the realm of dynamic! Of course I can't just blame her, I can blame the writers. Characters don't change THAT much in a matter of 24 hours!

Julia Roberts, oh how I love Julia Roberts....She was fantastic, I absolutely loved her. She was tricky, cunning, smart, beautiful, vain, and will kill you if you piss her off. THAT IS WHAT THE CHARACTER IS. And she played it off wonderfully thinking she's the cream of the crop, and she was blatantly cruel to Snow in front of a suitor.

Nathan Lane was wonderful as well. He was such a lapdog in this film but did it so well. Nathan is one of the finest actors the world has to offer, and he did not disappoint. I saw this film because of him and Julia Roberts.

I don't know who anyone else in this film was but Sean Bean who only had like one minute of screen time. But it's freaking Sean Bean, he's great.

All of the dwarfs did a fantastic job and I loved their spirit.

I hated the Prince. He reminded me of the princes in Into the Woods and "wood"nt you believe it? He says a line from Into the Woods! "The trees are just wood". I love Into the Woods, but come on.

Special effects were great. That's all I have to say. And if you see the film, at the end right before the credits LOOK AT THE CLOUDS. One is Snow, the other is the prince. It's actually kinda cool!

So to sum it up, dwarfs shouldn't be used for comic relief, Julia Roberts is a sexy evil queen, Nathan Lane is damn hilarious, and people aren't as dynamic as they made Snow White, and when you have two famous actors like Nathan Lane and Julia Roberts, you should give Sean Bean more screen time, and actually get famous actors (WHO ARE DAMN AWESOME) to be your prince and princess who every person on the damn planet will know so we aren't looking them up on wikipedia.

It was a great film for children, and it had adult humor. The setting was interesting, and it was entertaining, but it was a wee bit weak for my taste. But at the end of the day, I'll let you be the judge of this film.