Awfully Good: Mirror Mirror

By Jason Adams

April 20th 2016, 10:15am

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

As you prepare for THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER'S WAR, here's another Snow White movie nobody really asked for…

Mirror Mirror (2012)

Director: Tarsem
Stars: Julia Robert, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer

The classic Snow White story… Now with 100% more Julia Roberts poop face!

Julia Roberts rubs bird shit on her face!

That was the initial appeal of MIRROR MIRROR and what multiple people proclaimed when suggesting this for Awfully Good. And to be fair, that's a pretty accurate summation of this movie.

"I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to rub avian excrement on my face."

In case you block mediocrity from your memory, MIRROR MIRROR was one of two competing Snow White movies to come out in 2012. SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN was more commercially successful, but I remember literally nothing about that film except that I was rooting for Charlize Theron the whole time. The one thing going in MIRROR MIRROR's favor was director Tarsem, who usually makes movies that at least look good. While this film is not as visually audacious as THE CELL or THE FALL, it does have an elaborately whimsical style that feels more appropriate for a fairy tale than the generic fantasy feel to the Kristen Stewart movie.

I don't know the name of this band, but I immediately want to buy their album.

And like with most Tarsem movies, the script doesn't live up to the visuals. MIRROR MIRROR tries desperately to be clever with self-aware narration from the evil queen herself and attempts to subvert the classic story (Snow White is now a fighting bandit who rescues the prince!), but the fractured fairy tale aspect feels decades too late. Still, it's not a completely unwatchable disaster. The lighthearted tone and sophomoric humor make this more appropriate for children rather than adults, save for a few bizarre, headscratching elements. Here are five examples:

Bjork: The College Years.

1. Up first is Julia Roberts, who gives a truly strange performance as the evil queen—and not just because she gets a fecal facial. Despite her insistence that she's not the main character, Roberts is clearly the contractually obligated star of this thing. She's in most of the scenes, the story is constantly sympathetic to her wicked behavior, and she even plays the titular mirror—forcing you to endure Julia Roberts acting opposite Julia Roberts. It makes for a strangely unbalanced Snow White movie. Which is awkward given that this is a version of the story where the queen not only wants to kill Snow White, but also desperately wants to bang the handsome prince.

"Yes, his full name is really Armand Hammer. Like the baking soda."

2. Speaking of the prince…poor Armie Hammer. He spends most of the movie in various states of embarrassment, from having to get his ass kicked by dwarves to being repeatedly stripped down and ogled by the middle aged star of PRETTY WOMAN. He also has a puppy spell put on him, meaning you get to see one of the Winklevoss twins act like a hyperactive dog for the second act of the movie. Hasn't the star of THE LONE RANGER suffered enough?

3. Nathan Lane is one of the highlights of the film in a very small supporting role as the queen's official bootlicker who gets turned in to a cockroach. Most of his ad libs are entertaining, except for the random comment about getting raped by a grasshopper. (Offscreen, thankfully.)

Sean Bean gets that a lot.

4. Since this is a fantasy movie, of course there's a giant CGI creature the heroes are forced to fight in the end. This strange beast is part-lion, part-snake, part-deer, and part-chicken. And in a strange turn of events it ends up being Snow White's previously assumed dead father, played by Sean Bean. That's right – in this movie Sean Bean actually comes back from the dead!

5. And of course because Lily Collins is Phil Collins' daughter, the movie has to end with Snow White singing and dancing in a Bollywood-style song-and-dance number.

Unlike her cousin Red, Little Yellow Riding Hood didn't take shit from no wolves.

The only thing truly good about MIRROR MIRROR is the Oscar-nominated costumes. And by that, I mean this poor extra who was forced to dress like a pair of testicles:

Short jokes, pants jokes and the best of Nathan Lane.

Julia Roberts getting a crappy facial, little people humor and poor Armie Hammer being humiliated.

Corsets and undergarments! Try to control yourself.

At least this director didn't cheat on his wife with Snow White. Buy this movie here!