Mirror Mirror

We've all seen remakes of fairy tale stories before. We've even seen updated versions of these stories, but in "Mirror Mirror", not only was the title changed, but also a lot of the character names as well. It's like being in the past visually, but with up-to-date cultural attitudes.

One of the most beloved stories of all time just got repackaged, reshuffled all in the name of humor and wit and satire.
An evil Queen (Julia Roberts) marrys a King (Sean Bean) whom she has killed, only to steal control of the kingdom and eventually exiles a princess-- her stepdaughter Snow White (Lily Collins). The timid Snow ends up meeting and enlisting seven resourceful rebel dwarfs-- Napoleon (Jordan Prentice), Half Pint (Mark Povinelli), Grub (Joe Gnoffo), Grimm (Danny Woodburn), Wolf (Sebastian Saraceno), Butcher (Martin Klebba), and Chuckles (Ronald Lee Clark) to help her win back her birthright and kingdom.
Through all this, the Queen is hopelessly broke, so she summons her kiss ass bungling assistant, Brighton (Nathan Lane) to put together a ball to beat all balls to win over a young, rich prince (Armie Hammer) so she can be solvent again.

Others to round out the cast are Robert Emms as Charles Renbock, the prince's assistant, Mare Winningham as Margaret, a castle baker, and Michael Lerner as Baron.

This film was visually directed by Tarsem Singh Dhandwar ("The Cell" 2000, "The Fall" '06, "Immortals" '11). I say visual because one look at his resume, and it screams color, which make his films a pleasure to watch even if you're not wild about the story. It was written by Jason Keller and Marc Klein based on a screen story by Melissa Wallack which was based on an original story by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. With the exception of very few inconsistencies in plot, this had just the right amount of wit and satire that made this repackage work.

The cast really worked well off one another and Roberts was simply a hoot! The real change of character here was of the dwarves. The names, personalities, attire-- everything about them were changed but they rocked.

This rendition was fun for one and all and with all the colors-- costumes, sets, even the beast in it, you'll get a lot of bang for your buck here.

Out of 4 stars: 3.5                      Rated: PG                       106min.