MIRROR MIRROR AIN’T THE FAIREST OF THE SNOW WHITE MOVIES

Man, I was at least expecting something visually exciting.   ABC's Once Upon a Time is much more expensive looking and lush than that turd.   Also the trailer needed more record scratches.

I was unprepared for how awful that was. However, the girl playing Snow is devastatingly cute.

 

That's Phil Collins' kid.

This movie definitely has the better Snow White.   I like Kristin Stewart and all but fairer than Charlize Theron?   Puhleeez.   This one I could buy.

To be fair, the K-Stew Snow White is going for the more badass version of the character. I don't know if I could see this cutie-pie chopping down monsters. Say what you want about Stewart, but outside of Twilight she's good at playing a tomboy.

Tarsem's visuals can be garish at their worst, and I'm sorry, but the imagery here is just downright ugly.  Too busy, too many colors and ideas jumbling together in an explosive mess.  Some of the sets actually remind me of Catherine Hardwicke's take on Red Riding Hood, which similarly had a very stagey, oversaturated, over-styled feel.

 

And I get that this version is intended more for the younger set, so the jokes are entirely inevitable, but this is the best the great visual stylist could conceive of?  Inexplicable Scarface references and puns based on the titular heroine's name?  Not funny.  Seems like substandard, cynical, Dreamworks-esque humor.

Looks like a live action SHREK. The humor looks predictable and forced, the production design looks cheap and unpolished, and Julia Roberts seems miscast. Pass.

That...wow. I mean, wow. Couldn't even make it though the trailer. And yeah, it's kind of bizarre that the other Snow White looks so much more like a Tarsem Singh movie.

 

Granted, you could argue that this actually has the correct tone and attitude for a movie adaptation of Snow White, but man, these guys REALLY needed to get their trailer out before Huntsman. Now they just look kind of pathetic.

I feel like Roberts' characterization is meant to be funny, but also a little intimidating. I do not buy her as the villain of this piece. Has she ever really done villainy?

 

I was genuinely okay with hamrlessly ignoring this this until the Scarface reference. Poor, poor good looking Armie Hammer.

I keep thinking that they should have gotten Michelle Pfeiffer to play the evil queen. Have her essentially do.her STARDUST role all over again. She was one of the best parts of that movie, hitting the right balance of humor and menace. Roberts is just wrong.

During the trailer, I thought of a young Jennifer Connelly, Mia Sara, and Marisa Tomei all rolled into one.

 

This looks like some Hallmark TV movie.

 

God that's terrible...

So many castles....

I didn't even bother watching the whole thing.  I got to the Queen getting sewn into her dress, heard that trademark laugh/yodel/neigh and that was the last straw.  This sucker is gonna tank, and the schadenfreude will be delicious.

I'll happily eat crow when it comes out and actually is the horrible film it looks like, but all I can see is the poorly cut trailer - movie guy voice, pop music? If that's all in the film, I'll agree, but with Tarsem, he's got my vote over the epic Snow White of epicness and the epic Huntsman. I'm hoping this is aiming to be a Princess Bride type movie but ends up being more like Stardust. 

Before seeing either trailer, I'd pegged the Tarsem outing as the one that would probably be the most interesting of the two.  I was wrong.  So, so, so wrong.  Huntsmen actually has my interest piqued a bit.

 

Mirror, Mirror looks like shit.  And not just any kind of shit.  Late 90s Disney family film shit.  If this were released 10 years ago, the Queen would have been played by Tim Allen in drag and Martin Short would be in the Nathan Lane role.  Mike Myers would have played all of the dwarfs. 

 

Go ahead, try and tell me that I'm wrong.

Wow.... This looks much worse than I imagined based off the garish looking photos released recently. 

 

A clear candidate for the worst trailer of the year.

Tarsem still has some of my goodwill from The Fall, but this really does look like a hell of a mess. Such a weird mix of clashing styles - Tarsem's cold, artsy shot compositions and taste for ostentatious costumes, Julia Roberts doing the old Julia Roberts thing, a load of broad whimsy, and out of place modern adult pop culture references as if it's Shrek or something. Not everything about it seems bad but it's hard to imagine the movie as a whole being good.

Immortals is doing well, so he has that going for him.  He's also lined up his next film already, A Killing On Carnival Row (which GDT and Neil Jordan were previously attached to), so even if this tanks he'll already at least be in pre-production (if not actual shooting) on another project that has the potential to be interesting.  I think he may even have something in the works to immediately follow-up that one as well. 

 

As long as he keeps working steadily and with modestly budgeted efforts, Tarsem can afford a hiccup every now and then.

 

 

QFT. All of it.

 

The only thing good going for it as I can see, is that actual little people got some work.