Director Tarsem Singh is quite a talented man. He’s an extraordinary visual stylist and I’ve always wished him to have more success but it seems that his style will never quite make for box office gold. I’d love to be proven wrong but that’s certainly how it seems just now. Of course, if he always picked better material then he’d stand a better chance of getting his vision across to the masses but I can’t argue with a man of his talent being determined to do things his way. In fact, I just tend to enjoy the movies that he’s so far directed and I see his name as a stamp of quality. If I dislike the movie then there will at least be some stunning moments of cinema onscreen for me to enjoy.
Having heaped that praise upon the man, he seemed an unlikely choice for another cinematic adaptation of the Snow White tale. It’s a classic and beloved tale that’s so popular that I’m not going to patronise anyone by recounting the premise now. The story is something that I’ll just assume everyone knows. This particular version of it, however, is nicely twisted while retaining all of the essential ingredients.
Lily Collins plays Snow White and once the first act is over and done with she becomes more and more beautiful and fitting for the role. Julia Roberts is the evil Queen and her performance is just a delight, comedic and over the top in her dastardly scheming. Nathan Lane reminds viewers that he should be in many more movies with his portrayal of Brighton, servant to the Queen. And then there’s Armie Hammer, showing great potential as the Prince. He has the classic looks and demeanour but also gets the humour just right.
Then we have the dwarfs, a great mix of characters portrayed by actors such as Martin Klebba, Ronald Lee Clark and a number of other great performers who easily measure up to the role (yeah, sorry, pun intended but it’s nice to see these roles being acted out without the need for excessive CGI or forced perspective).
The script has plenty of enjoyable one-liners and every scene has a lot of fun to it while the visual side of things are, as you would expect from a Tarsem Singh movie, stunning. If you like his particular vision and also enjoyed movies such as Stardust and Enchanted then I easily recommend this as a fantastic film that you may find able to entertain the whole family.
Mirror Mirror can be purchased for you to reflect on from July 30th. The DVD has very few extras – one featurette that runs for about 12 minutes and should, under no circumstances, be watched before you see the movie and one horrible puff piece that’s simply an excuse to show some cute puppies onscreen (thankfully, it runs for just under 2 minutes). Not the fairest package of them all, by any means, though picture and sound quality are superb. The Blu-ray has some more extras but the emphasis still seems to be on keeping the kids happy as opposed to revealing a lot more of the moviemaking process.
DIRECTOR: TARSEM SINGH
WRITER: JASON KELLER, MARC KLEIN, MELISA WALLACK (BASED ON THE TALE BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM)
STARS: LILY COLLINS, JULIA ROBERTS, ARMIE HAMMER, NATHAN LANE, JORDAN PRENTICE, MARTIN KLEBBA, MARK POVINELLI, JOE GNOFFO, DANNY WOODBURN, SEBASTIAN SARACENO, RONALD LEE CLARK, ROBERT EMMS, MARE WINNINGHAM, MICHAEL LERNER, SEAN BEAN
RUNTIME: 106 MINS APPROX
COUNTRY: USA
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