Mirror, Mirror

ABC Family had a "Funday" weekend schedule (their description) last weekend and showed a lot of Disney movies. While I was lounging around on Sunday, I watched most of the 2012 Snow White adaptation, Mirror, Mirror, starring Julia Roberts and Phil Collins' daughter, Lily Collins, a movie which had never really made it onto my radar and which I had entirely forgotten.

After a few minutes I was preparing to turn it off, but the fun appearance of the Seven Dwarfs interested me enough to keep watching. I watched almost all of it, liked it, and afterwards had a few thoughts.

First, Julia Roberts was horribly miscast;  I didn't buy her as the villain at all. More annoying than frightening, she just didn't work in the role and she's the reason I almost turned it off. From the start, I immediately wanted to punch her in the face, which is generally okay since she's a villain, but I didn't want to punch the Evil Queen in face, I wanted to punch Julia Roberts. So there's that.

Armie Hammer, as the Prince, was charming and fun. He has kind of a Brendan Fraser had a child with Jon Hamm vibe going and I enjoyed every minute he was on the screen.

ANY movie can be made better by including a gang of fun, wisecracking, anti-social, little people, in this case the actors playing the Seven Dwarfs. For further evidence, see The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Time Bandits.

At one point, the King is going to marry two people and he pretty much exactly quoted the wedding vows that first Kirk used in the Star Trek episode, Balance of Terror, then Picard used in The Next Generation episode, Data's Day, replacing the word "Captain" with "King". I loved the subtle easter egg.

Finally, it occurred to me that there are now a LOT of light Fantasy movies with a modern sensibility. The grandfather of them all is the perfect, The Princess Bride. But many of the movies in this genre are quite good, including A Knight's Tale, Ella Enchanted, The Brothers Grimm, Into the Woods, Enchanted, Shrek, and the great Stardust.

So I guess I did have a Funday after all.