Mirror Mirror

This fairy-tale was pretty chill. For example, the costumes the Indian director picked for the characters were literally perfect. When Julia Roberts came to that wedding wearing a dress that was at least three meters wide, I was gaping at the screen. Unfortunately, you can rely on an Indian to botch it all up with the Bollywood-style tacky ending. Even though I had a good feeling about the movie the whole time I was watching it, the ending vexed me a lot. So if you opt to watch this Snow White, I recommend you turn it off at the moment when things start coming to the end. Otherwise you’ll be treated to Bollywood dancing, overly cheerful singing and laughing faces, and the entire filming crew shouting and dancing to a tune which is completely at odds with the previous fairy-tale atmosphere, shooting it down brutally like Big Bertha, the huge German heavy siege gun. (17/12/2013)

Tarsem Singh is a misunderstood and underappreciated individual. Whatever could be said about his previous films is entirely true here as well. Singh once again captivates with visuals and bizarre ideas that are not to most people's taste, but I appreciate him all the more. This was a very playful and enjoyable film. That it sometimes descended into infantile humour? So what. And the Bollywood wink at the end made me very happy. PS: Phil Collins can be proud of his daughter. (13/05/2012)

Snow White in its traditional form was already preserved by Disney before the war, so all other attempts to revive this classic are more or less ambitious superstructures. Since these things become a golden grail, Disney has never allowed for an official sequel and the competition always has to come up with something extra. Of such ideas we can recall the cute dwarfs, or the tale of horror, but Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror comes at the same time as Snow White and the Huntsman and the two films are forced to compete with each other. It's a bit of a shame, because the genre always ends up being somewhat different. This film is Julia Roberts acting solo in a new comedic position that doesn't pander and is something new. What happens outside of the scenes with her is a departure, but it's not bad either. This film is all about interesting special effects, lavish costumes, an unusual concept of the prince and dialogue that no one would expect in a fairy tale. I'll ignore the final dance number because it's so inorganic (similar to Slumdog Millionaire). (25/12/2020)

It looked so interesting at the beginning that I naively thought that this time I would see Snow White's story told from the perspective of the Queen, whom Julia Roberts played perfectly, and I would have no problem keeping my fingers crossed for her. Sadly, I was wrong. There was no "we'll fool you with the trailer" subterfuge, the Queen got less and less space as time went on and infantile jokes, utterly insufferable dwarves and other unnecessary weirdness came to the fore. By the end of it all, I was so incredulously dumbfounded that I liked the video clip finale. I give two stars for them, for Julia Roberts and for Menken's music, but no more. What the film does to the character of the Queen, by the way, is perfectly captured by the scene where Julia Roberts gets her face painted with bird... er... droppings. Then it only gets worse. (23/04/2013)

A particularly strange slant on the story of Snow White, but, believe it or not, I liked it. There’s no reason to look for any complicated plot or dramatic acting performances in a kids’ movie. It was an entertaining feet-up movie and I really enjoyed myself watching. And that crazy ending really got me. (30/12/2014)