Mirror Mirror. Rated PG (mild themes and violence). 106 minutes. Directed by Tarsem Singh. Screenplay by Melissa Wallack and Jason Keller.
Verdict: A veritable feast for the eyes, but not necessarily the ears.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s (the Brothers Grimm) fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was most famously produced for the screen by Walt Disney in 1937. Celebrated as the first cel-animated feature film in motion picture history, Disney’s Snow White … , (with its unforgettable songs by Frank Churchill and Larry Morey including ‘Heigh-Ho’ and ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’) remains an extraordinary artistic achievement.
And while you certainly won’t be inspired to sing ‘Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go’ at the end of this sumptuously costumed and designed adaptation, there is a good deal to enjoy – especially for fans of Julia Roberts, who parades the late Eiko Ishioka’s spectacular costumes most memorably. Relentlessly upstaged by the frocks, Ms Roberts’ performance as The Queen is, otherwise, curiously restrained – and with a few exceptions, the film suffers from a fractured sense of everyone being unsure just how over-the-top to go with the material.
