Mirror Mirror (2012)

An evil queen steals control of a kingdom and an exiled princess enlists the help of seven resourceful rebels to win back her birthright. [imdb]

Nominated for 1 Oscar:

Best Costume Design

Mirror Mirror was one of the two 2012 American films dealing with Snow White's story, and the films couldn't have been more different, especially in tone and genre. This is easily the one I liked the least, even though it does seem to have its fans. I was open to the idea of the film, but all those bad jokes were really hard to take. 

The best thing about the film is Lily Collins' leading performance as Snow White - not that she gets that much to do, but she's right for the part, quite pretty and does the best she can to keep us interested when the camera is one her. The thing everyone's talking about is the Costume Design - the costumes were created by Eiko Ishioka, who has since passed away. I was a huge fan of her work in Coppola's 1992 Dracula, but for this film I have mixed feelings. A couple of Snow White's dresses were really pretty (the white swan), but everything that Julia Roberts wears (and she wears a lot of stuff) looked cheap to me and unworthy of an Evil Queen; some really questionable fabric choices - trust me, I was paying attention.

And that brings me to the film's two worst elements: Julia Roberts is terrible, I don't remember the last time I saw such a poor performance of hers. Needs to be noted: the casting is a disaster, she's neither pretty enough to play the Evil Queen (she is suppose to be the most beautiful one of them all!!!), nor wicked enough to nail the dark side of the character. She's doing her old Julia Roberts thing that doesn't work here. The other problem of the film: the screenplay that feels the need to throw in one joke after the other, with only about 10% of them actually being worthy to be included.

My rating for the film: 4.5/10. And what's with the song at the end?! Biggest WTF song moment since Slumdog Millionaire.