On Saturday March 24, I had the opportunity to attend a sneak preview of the new Julia Roberts movie, Mirror Mirror. My recommendation is don’t pay full price or wait until it comes out on DVD.
Although the scenery and costumes were outstanding, it suffered from a weak plot. The characters were reedy thin and did stupid things to try and get a laugh from the audience. But there wasn’t any real substance behind their behavior. The handsome prince (played by Armie Hammer) was an imbecile. He wasn’t likeable and his only redeeming quality was his looks and that faded after watching him for five minutes. Julia Roberts could have made her character so much richer than she did. Instead she went around doing evil things without any real substance behind her actions. She chewed scenery, but you didn’t hate her and you didn’t have empathy for her either. You just wanted to get her off the screen.
Lily Collins who played Snow White didn’t have any type of role to sink her teeth into either. She enlisted the help of seven dwarves (played by seven real-life dwarves) to snatch her birth right to rule the kingdom from the evil step mother (Roberts). The plot was predictable and bland, the stunts looked mostly CGI, although some of the special effects did look realistic (the monster particularly).
There were moments in the movie that were mildly funny and brought a few laughs from the audience, but over all, the movie was a disappointment. There was such an opportunity to take Snow White and rewrite it and make it into something viable, but this movie did not achieve this. I fail to understand why, when there are so many good writers in this country and world, that Hollywood can’t come up with better scripts.
I give it a grade C. It wasn’t horrible, but it was far from great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCdMHUx59mQ
