An Over the Garden Wall
Reference! Awesome! Moving on though.
Mirror Mirror
In the glorious year of 2012 the world was treated to not one BUT two Snow White movies. One was an epic sort of action movie that feautured Snow White leading an army and having “fairest blood,” whatever the fuck that is. The other was comedic but did have Snow White fighting though on a smaller scale. Which one is better? Well that’s a question of taste as neither one is a good movie. Both of them are stupid and dumb in different ways but I find Mirror Mirror to be easier to watch and my taste is the only one that matters.
Lily Collins as Snow White and Armie Hammer as the Prince Andrew Alcott
The basic story set-up is the same except that Snow White’s father, the King, leaves to fight some evil thing and he is never seen again. He leaves his new Queen/Sorceress Clementianna in charge.
Some years later, Snow White is eighteen and mostly confined to her room. Clementianna would you believe turns out to be a crappy ruler. She is so bad that they can only afford one season which is winter. No seriously the kingdom is broke and they have having a little localized ice age.
Snow White is encouraged from some of the kitchen staff pals to check out the town, apparently this kingdom is just one town but whatever so off into the world Snow White goes or just the creepy looking forest, just get used to this forest. There she meets Prince Alcott and his servant who are tied up and were rob by dwarfs one expandable slits, which is really cool. She helps them and they has a little instance attraction though they don’t know that they are both royality. So Snow White goes to town and sees how bad it it and Alcot goes to castle for I don‘t recall why might have had something to do with the plot. Clementianna takes a liking to the Prince and wants to marry him as he is rich and good looking and what else is there really? She decides hold a ball and to pay for it she will tax the people.
Snow White and Alcott dance together and the find out each other identity but Clementianna doesn’t like that so she has her man-servant Brighton take Snow White into the creepy woods to kill. Brighton is a coward and decides to level her there for the Beast to kill or turn her in a tree of oil, I kid, that is another Over the Garden reference. Snow White then finds her way to the dwarf’s lair.
The next day, Brighton collects the taxes and the Dwarfes steal it. Snow White disapproves but they tell her that they were made outcast by the town so the don’t give a fuck. Snow White takes the money back and gives all the credit to the dwarfs. The Dwarfes decide that she can stay with them. They give her a training montage and a new threads.
Clementianna then tells Alcott that Snow White is dead and then as Clementianna is tries and pop the question to Alcott, Brighton tell them about the robbery. Alcott then goes into the forest and see Snow White is not dead but in leauge with the dwarf and him and her have a little duel.
Clementianna then goes to her happy place, her Mirrior house where he reflection lives. Clementianna has her reflection turn her servant into a cockroach, gives her a spell to make Alcott love her and uses puppets to marionette thing to attack Snow White and the Dwarves. They defeat them though. Alcott is given a puppy love spell which makes him act like a puppy who thinks Clementianna is his master but that enough for her to plan a wedding, it’s like her seventh or something but she still excited.
Snow and crew break up the wedding and kidnap Alcott. Snow White breaks the spell with a kiss and the Clementianna has the Beast attack. Snow White notices that the Beast has a similar charm around his neck that Clementianna has and it seems to begging for help with it’s eyes. Snow White breaks the charm and the Beast turns into Sean Bean erm the King. This also undos Clementianna’s magic and changes her into an old crone. At Alcott and Snow White’s wedding, Clementianna offers her an apple but Snow doesn’t take it. Then they Bollywood dance, of no earthly reason.
Lily Collins as Snow White and Julia Roberts as Clementianna as an old crone
Like Snow White and the Huntsmen this movie tries to take Snow White and make her a kick-ass empowered woman. I would say this movie does it a bit better that Huntsmen. First off you see her abilty grow even though it had been like a day maybe. It’s still better that the one move Huntsmens’ Snow White learns one thing and suddenly she a genius military leader. You could see the Snow White ruler and you could see her kindness and that she wasn’t a total push over.
Both movies do tackle the Snow White element differently too. In Huntsmen the Dwarves are useless and Mirror Mirror they do things and are memorable. The Mirrors are handled very similarly and very differently. Both are a physical manifestation of a reflection but whereas Huntsmen is a weird goo guy Mirror Mirror is another dimension with Queen’s own reflection. Huntsmen also takes the classic approach to the sleep death and the apple and Mirror Mirror really didn’t bother that much but did keep the kiss to save the prince. Both are contrived though.
Nathan Lane as Brighton,
The first thing one really notices about this movie other than the style is the humor or to be more exact the attempt at humor. The comedy is VERY hit or miss and sometimes it’s just awkward. I’ll give some of the jokes a pass because of Nathan Lane and he is awesome.
Lily Collins as Snow White
Considering the humor, this movie is hard to gauge on tone and genre. It’s a fantasy, drama, comedy. I sort of felt like a I was watching a Snow White female empowerment movie aimed at younger teens but through the eyes of a middle ages guy who thinks he is artistic. Oh wait, that’s it. It’s not bad but the presentation of this movie is really all over the place. It’s has cool visuals and bad to weird jokes.
Julia Roberts as The Evil Queen Clementianna
Speaking of being confused, the casting. For the part I think the cast did a good job, I don’t think the roles were anything too complex but they all did fine but the choices. The first time I watch this movie I kept saving to myself How was Sean Bean in this? Since then he has been in that Jupiter Ascending movie, so guy’s got to eat and what not plus with this role it was more like a cameo. But Julia Roberts was a weird pick for the Queen. She is a polarizing actress, I don’t know of too many people who are fans. She really did chew the scenery and gave the role a catty bitchiness which was fun but there seems like there could have been a better actress.
Also the chemistry between Snow White and Alcott was ok but they just didn’t seem right together.
Lily Collins as Snow White
Well if you haven’t guessed it by now the best thing about this movie were the costumes. They are big, grand, over the top and have crazy details. I will say I’m not wild about Snow White’s orange and blue gown but I really loved her fighting get up and the costume she is first seen in, it was very pretty. Also I liked her yellow cloak.
Clementianna’s costumes are big and insane but I enjoyed them. I liked her red gown and her wedding gown the best. I really like that all of Clementianna’s costumes have angular pointy elements Snow White’s are softer and rounder. It’s a nice nod to their characters.
The sets in this movie look fake but are fun. The style of this movie is really what makes it interesting it would have been a dull movie otherwise that being said, I feel like the over-the-top nearly cooky visual style and the light-hearted humor/adventure tone should have worked better together but they never really came together.
Lily Collins as Snow White
Mirror Mirror
is an interesting dumb movie. It gets something right but confuses more than entertains but it was still better that Snow White and the Thor though that doesn’t really take that much. Also the Bollywood number at the end was cringeworthy.
Clue 1
and Clue 2
