Mirror Mirror
Snow White (Lily Collins, Abduction and daughter of singer Phil Collins) lives in the castle with her father, the king (Sean Bean, Percy Jackson and the Olympians), and she leads a very happy life. Her mother died in childbirth, but soon her father remarries, to the Evil Queen (Julia Roberts, Larry Crowne). The king goes into the woods one day and never comes out, and it is then that the Queen becomes Snow White's guardian and never lets her leave the castle. Our story starts on the day of Snow's 18th birthday, where the Queen is throwing a gala - but not a birthday party - and Snow sneaks out of the castle.
Snow comes across a prince (Armie Hammer, J. Edgar) who has been robbed by thieves, and she helps him and his companion by cutting them down from a tree, where they are tied up. She doesn't tell him that she is a princess, and he doesn't tell her that he is a prince; later, however, they come across each other at the castle, at another ball the Queen is throwing. There's a hitch, however: the Queen is broke and wants to marry the Prince so she can be rich again - therefore, there's no way she's letting Snow White have him. When the Queen's henchman, Brighton (Nathan Lane, The Producers) takes Snow White out to the woods to kill her as he's been instructed, he instead frees her, and she ends up finding the (seven) dwarves and living with them. The dwarves teach Snow how to defend herself and how to steal, so that they can steal from the Queen and give back money to the poor townspeople that she has been taxing left and right.
The beginning of the movie is a little campy, and I was originally thinking that I wasn't going to enjoy it much. However, after 20 minutes or so, it begins to become fun, and Julia Roberts' and Nathan Lane's performances, in particular, were great. Lily Collins, too, gives a good performance as the princess, and Armie Hammer has a more comedic role here; previously I had only seen him in The Social Network. The dwarves go by the names of Napoleon, Half Pint, Grub, Grimm, Wolf, Butcher, and Chuck "Call Me Chuckles," a far cry from "Sleepy, "Grumpy," and crew, and they are pretty funny as well.
Yes, see this film. It's not a movie that will keep you thinking about it long after you walk out of the theater, but it's a fun movie to watch, and some of the one-liners in it, in particular, were very funny. I would recommend it as a good matinee movie to watch on a lazy weekend or rainy afternoon. The cinematography in this film is beautiful, too, and the costumes are extremely lavish, with colors that "pop" on screen. Make sure you stay through the credits, as well, to see a Bollywood-type song and dance number (to this song) that's extremely catchy; indeed, the director, Tarsem Singh, has directed many music videos, which might be why it's done so well.
Mirror Mirror is in theaters today, March 30th, and is rated PG with a runtime of 106 minutes. 3 stars out of 5.
