Mirror Mirror

Starring Julia Roberts and the Winklevoss Twin
In UK Cinemas April 2nd

by RJ

Mirror mirror- the untold story of Snow White is…. Interesting.

Not to start off negative, but there are 2 big bug bears for me- Firstly, why does the cast go downhill with each additional character? It feels like they spunked the whole casting budget on Julia Roberts’ teeth, then found extras for the rest of the cast. This feeling could be two fold as the poster girl looking like Anne Hathaway with eyebrows stolen from a Mexican peasant, and Armie Hammer being Brendan Fraser in all but name.

This is forgiveable however as Julia Roberts’ mouth does its duty, Arm & Hammer plays the prince good enough to laugh at his jokes, and Lily Collins gets hot midway through. More importantly, she plays the vulnerable to strong heroine well.

On screen chemistry between her and Armie Schwarzenegger seems awkward at times, compounded by the quality of exchanges between Collins and the new dwarves. The quirky updated personas for the dwarves flows and makes the film pop and give it some genuine funny parts. And that’s where the 2nd problem lies.

The writers changed the dwarves and the story set up…. and it works. It really works. But I can’t help but feel the ending is rushed to keep it short enough to make sure children’s attention span doesn’t wander. An extra 5-10 minutes, or a slightly tighter script, would’ve left me feeling slightly more fulfilled.

This isn’t a bad film. Far from it. The CGI, set dressing, costumes and in particular the props all give this film good memories. And you could see a lot worse over the Easter holidays. Hell, it was good enough to bring out both Game Of Throne Stark daughters to the London premiere (who ironically, even though more famous than, drew less glances than none other than…. Sinita).