movie: Mirror, Mirror, or "The One Where Snow White Makes A Robin Hood Speech"

[meganbmoore]

So, since the last time I went to the theaters, matinee prices inflated to what evening prices were then. 

Trailers were less than inspiring:  Dark Shadows looked amusing and I liked the Brave clip (except for the bit with how her dad is apparently so fun and approachable but her mother is strict and humorless AND DOESN'T UNDERSTAND) but the rest were basically "The Adventures of (probably straight) Awkward White Dudes (and the less important people in the background)."

The movie was fun!  If you've watched the trailers, even if you thought the movie looked awful, you know that it's going to have some stunning visuals just because of the coloring, and rather imaginative costuming (sometimes a bit TOO imaginative, but the bulk of that is deliberate).  My favorite bit of the visuals, though, is likely the opening, in which Julia Roberts's Evil Queen gives her version of Snow White's background, acted out by animated china dolls.  It's cracky, but not the pure, OTT crackfest the trailers implied.  There's plenty of humor and tongue-in-cheekness, but it's mostly a romantic/comedic fantasy adventure, and most of it didn't feel OTT to me.  Julia Roberts really is the highlight (you really can see her reading the script and marking where she thinks there should be evil laughter, or where she should JUST BE MEANER) but I thought the rest did a good job too.

I did have a few quibbles.  Most were 5 second "why...would you do that?" things and one was bigger.

 

Spoilers:

The big thing is that, while I'm glad Snow White found and saved her father, the ending really does emphasize that it's a happy ending because the Queen is gone and there's a King again.  The ending song even points out that that's part of the victory.  Meanwhile Snow White, our heroine, is firmly kept in the "princess" role and secondary to her father in the kingdom, despite saving the kingdom and making declarations earlier that she was reclaiming her birthright (taking back the kingdom with the intention of ruling it herself.)  Sure, she'll be the queen later, but her "happy ending" very much makes remaining a girl and princess a part of the happiness, instead of letting her become a woman.
 

I'll hold out for Snow White and the Huntsman letting her become the queen and taking over.  Also, is Sean Bean making "undying after being believed dead for 10 years" his new thing?  Because he's done that twice very recently for me.

The other bits were:

1.  When Brighton becomes a human again after having been a cockroach, he comments that a grasshopper rook advantage of him" and it's a comedic moment.  RAPE JOKES ARE NEVER FUNNY GUYS.
2.  When Snow and Alcott were swordfighting, he spanks her with the sword several times from around the tree.  WTF?  I mean, I don't mind him being better than her then:  She only has a few weeks/months training (tops) whereas he's been at it for probably years and she did eventually win by outsmarting him.  But seriously, SPANKING?  (And in case we weren't sure the writers actually realized he was spanking her, the writers had him call it spanking a few moments later.)  Another bit that was meant to be funny.  (And, like the other, for me, kept something I'd find funny from being funny.
3.  One of the dwarves doing the...sterotypical Indian rain dance (I know there's a much better and less faily term for that, it...just escapes me.  Sadly) while they were trying to remove the spell on Alcott.

There was another thing that bugged me, but I forget what it was now.
 

YMMV regarding the crack and reimagining, but I liked it.