It's taken me a long while to review Mirror Mirror, because, frankly, I
didn't want to. Some films are fun to review because they are amazing, and others are fun to review because they are terrible. The least fun thing to review is a completely blah, mediocre movie, especially when it comes from one of my favorite directors. Let's just say that Tarsem Singh's latest directorial effort is, at best, a mixed
bag. The story is a somewhat revisionary take on the Snow White fairy tale,
focusing on Julia Roberts' evil queen just as much as Lily Collins' (she of the
famous father and equally famous eyebrows) Snow White. The dwarves are
misunderstood thieves, the queen has a twin sister living in a mirror (a la Cloris Leachman in the Olsen twins' Double, Double, Toil and Trouble), and there is a people-
The past week saw the release of both of the trailers for the competing Snow White epics currently in the works. There is Tarsem Singh's comedic Mirror Mirror, which looks absolutely ridiculous (in the best way) and stars Julia Roberts, Nathan Lane, Armie Hammer, and some pale person whose name I keep forgetting. And then there is Snow White & the Huntsman, the uber-serious film starring Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Stewart, and a slew of other people, including a 7 non-little-people as the 7 Dwarves.
So which to choose?
Which is the fairest film of all?
Let's judge solely on the trailers, shall we?
Mirror Mirror certainly has a lot going for it. It's directed by Tarsem Singh, who has made some of the most visually stunning and sumptuous films of recent memory (The Cell, the amazing The Fall, and the not-terrible Immortals). In terms of fairy-tale magic, his version of
