I always wonder how and why movies like Mirror Mirror get green-lit. I mean, teen boys aren’t exactly clamoring for Snow White as a super-heroine, aliens don’t blow shit up, there are no car chases starring cool Ryan Gosling. So who persuades who that such a film needs funding? Perplexing.
Yet Mirror Mirror succeeds, I think, because the script is wry and clever – “No! You can’t change the ending,” complains the Prince “The old one works. It’s been focus-grouped” – and the entire cast looks to be having an absolute blast. Julia Roberts, initially off-putting as a the bad guy, is a treat as the selfish queen, and Armie Hammer is hardly bad on the eye, either. And the Seven Dwarves so often a gut-churningly awful, miscast element of this fairy tale, are uniformly excellent.
So Mirror Mirror is really all just radiant, charming, good-natured and gorgeous to look at. There’s still absolutely no reason for this film to exist, and I have no idea whether it’ll make it’s money back, but it’s a fun way to spend a 90 minutes anyway. It shot in Quebec.