You would be pretty hard pressed to find a person who claims that they don’t, or have never held, a special little warm place in their heart for Disney films. Of course I am referring to the animated Disney classics most of our generation grew up watching on a daily or, in some cases two-to-three-times-a-day basis. These filmmakers were able to round up perfection and then utilize it in every film they created. For some reason however, when these great films are adapted into live action movies there is a bit of magic and perfection lost, to say the least. Maybe it’s the lack of award-winning music and songs, or a lack of animation in general, but I don’t know that I have ever seen a live action adaptation that has lived up to its predecessor. From a 1980s television adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast,” to 2003s “Peter Pan” and even Tim Burton’s recent “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010 –– these films just seem to fall flat and don’t ever live up to their hype. Now we have yet another title to add to the continually failing Disney adaptations, and that is “Mirror, Mirror.”
“Mirror, Mirror” is the live-action adaptation of the classic Snow White story, complete with a charming prince, evil witch/queen and seven dwarfs. Although the details of the story have been changed a bit, the central idea is intact. After she has gotten rid of the king, the jealous queen (Julia Roberts) holds her beautiful stepdaughter Snow White (Lily Collins) captive inside her castle.
Realizing she is in grave financial debt, the queen opts to marry a wealthy prince. When she finds out that the prince loves Snow White, she calls for her execution. Now Snow White, with the help of seven thief dwarves, must fight for her life so that she and the prince can live happily ever after. That’s all well and good … if the film had still been animated. From the get-go “Mirror, Mirror” advertised itself to be a semi adult themed sarcastic adaptation, but gave its audience a script and plot line that would have only been acceptable if the film had been advertised as a strictly children’s movie.
If you are familiar with the basically unknown director Tarsem Singh, you know his style is rooted deeply in beautiful colors and very unique, but gorgeous imagery. Although he hasn’t done much, he is slowly making his way into the mainstream with last year’s “Immortals” and now “Mirror, Mirror.” Watching this movie, you can see Singh’s distinct brand written all over it, and yes this film is beautiful and extraordinary when is comes to the cinematography and directing (just look at the amazing animated opening sequence), but that’s about the only good thing I can say about this film. “Mirror, Mirror” does not know what kind of tone it is. Is it a children’s film? Is it trying to be funny? Am I supposed to feel offended for the dwarf actors in the film? From the opening sequence explaining the film’s back-story, the tone is already thrown off. The sequence is accomplished with beautiful animation that harkens back to the extraordinary animated story of the Deathly Hallows in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.” Although this may have been the best part of the film, it is undermined and almost ruined by poorly written pointless sarcasm by the narrator (Julia Roberts).
The screenplay was nothing more than a 10-page kids’ book with horribly written sarcasm written in for Julia Robert’s character. While she delivered them as well as they could have been, the lines just had no place in the story to begin with. Not to mention the fact that the queen was the only character that really had lines that may have been geared toward a more adult audience except for the dwarves who I just felt bad about exploiting the entire time. It’s hard for Nathan Lane to be boring and flat but “Mirror, Mirror” was able to accomplish just that. In their defense, it was not the actor’s fault at all, unless you want to blame them for choosing to do the film in the first place. The actors all do a fine job of delivering the poor material they were given.
All I can say in the end is, unless you want to see a film that would have gotten its best reviews at a daycare, do not waste your money on “Mirror, Mirror.”
