Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Should We Encourage 18-year-olds to Get Married? Mirror, Mirror (Rated PG) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS is wrong with most contemporary live-action Disney flicks. Its production was rushed because someone else had a better version of the same idea first. It is outdated, coming off as the male idea of what empowers women rather than anything resembling ac- tual female empowerment. Finally, the bits of clever dialogue that somehow found their way into this tortured exercise only serve to illustrate how tired and lackluster the remaining film is. The film opens on a promising note, with Queen Clementianna (Julia Roberts) promising to tell the Snow White story from the Queen's point of view. A film that did that would certainly by worth my time … imagine Snow White as a juvenile delinquent straight out of The Bad Girls Club, and the poor Queen struggling to do her parental duty by a brat. Sadly, Julia Roberts is a liar and the tail that follows is a very generic one, without even the redeeming and highly entertaining violence in the Grimm's version that inspired it. Snow White is born, her mom dies, the King (Sean Bean) remarries and then wanders off into the forest never to return. This leaves the evil step- mother in charge of the growing princess (Lily Collins) as well as the king- dom's coffers. Soon after her 18th birthday, it occurs to Snow White that if her father was the King, sooner or later she is going to become the Queen, so she spends a few minutes magically transporting herself through a dense for- est into the far off village. Seriously, how far away is the village? It seems like a few days of walking, but everyone, whether in carriage or on foot seems able to make it in a matter of hours. On her way, she runs into Prince Alcott (the unfortunately named Armie Hammer. Either his parents really loved Arm & Hammer or they really didn't like their son). Prince Alcott is tied up after being robbed by the Seven Dwarves and does not recognize Snow White even after she cuts him loose. Which, why was he was headed towards the castle? To propose some sort of Ugh. Mirror, Mirror (106 minutes) represents everything that alliance? Or to restore the Princess to the throne? But even after he gets to the castle his purpose seems a bit unclear. The Queen wants to marry him, Snow White is asking for his help, but he is a lot more concerned with salving his wounded pride — so why was he headed to the castle again? This is never made clear. Anyway, while it took the Queen 18 years or so to figure out that Snow White was a threat to her apparently limitless power, it only takes her about 18 seconds to order the manservant (Nathan Lane) to take her out into the woods and dump her for the forest creatures to devour, where she is saved by the dwarves (duh) and spends a day or two training in every fighting technique they know. Of course, her becoming an expert fighter is much less important than finding her a cute little pirate outfit to wear. The Prince enters the forest seeking the bandits that robbed him and spends a few scenes condescending to the supposedly empowered princess before returning to the castle in defeat. As further evidence of Snow White's empowerment, the dwarves make sure to fix her hair and show her how to wear make-up so she can enjoy her first kiss. It's so nice to see strong female characters (imagine that in sarcasm font). Director Tarsem Singh tries to create some on-screen beauty, and even oc- casionally succeeds. The opening marionette sequence is stunning, and the wide shots reveal a certain artistic attention to detail. It's the close-ups that don't work, making the use of set pieces too obvious and showing how cos- tume-y the costumes are. The final song, done in a Bollywood style sequence over the end credits is at least a little innova- tive, even if I was so bored by the point I didn't sit through the entire thing. There is kid appeal here, but overall it seemed very generic.Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com 24 UCW APRIL 18-24, 2012 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM