Mirror, Mirror

There were two Snow White films in 2012, and both were nominated for the Best Costume Design. Snow White and the Huntsman was the serious look at the fairy tale, while Mirror, Mirror was the comic version, a kind of film that has been somewhat commonplace since Shrek. The costumes, by the late Eiko Ishioka, are spectacular. That will be the end of my compliments about this film.

As directed by Tarsem Singh, who is know for his visual sense, Mirror, Mirror is distinctly lacking in substance. The Snow White tale is a familiar one, with Snow White the daughter of a king who has fallen under the spell of a wicked queen. Eventually, with the aid of some dwarfs and a handsome prince, she will be victorious.

This version, though, is more concerned with the wicked queen, as played by Julia Roberts. The mirror she talks to is represented as her conscience, and she does her best to have Snow White eliminated. Instead of a huntsman, though, it's Nathan Lane as Roberts' bootlick who takes Snow White into the woods, but lets her go. She ends up being rescued by a septet of dwarfs, who here are represented as thieves, forced into crime by being expelled from the village by the queen for being too ugly.

Almost none of this is interesting, or even remotely funny. There's just nothing more to be done with this story that Walt Disney did seventy-five years ago. Mirror, Mirror, written by Marc Klein and Jason Keller, does attempt to give the dwarfs separate identities (Seinfeld viewers will recognize Danny Woodburn, who played Mickey), but the script is a jumble of anachronistic jokes and mild slapstick.

Another problem is the enormous hole in the film where Snow White is concerned. Lily Collins, who is a great beauty, is a complete vacuum. She delivers her lines in a dull monotone that makes Kristen Stewart, her counterpart in Snow White and the Huntsmen, seem like the life of the party. Armie Hammer is the handsome prince, and he's more charismatic, but not much. Roberts has a great time with her part, but it's not enough.

Let's have a moratorium on winking fairy tale movies.