The actors were all good: Julia Roberts is the evil queen, very wicked but also rather funny; SnowWhite is played by Lily Collins, very pretty and gives a good rendition of the character’s innocence and goodness. Prince Alcott is Armie Hammer, who is handsome and funny, and it’s nice to see a man so handsome who does his best to actually act. The King is Sean Bean, who has the right figure for the part, although it’s so small that didn’t require much effort, still, always a pleasure.
Renbock was Robert Emms, not a big part but one I remember, funny. Nathan Lane was Brighton :-) and Danny Woodburn was Grimm, very good, I also liked Martin Klebba as Butcher and Ronald Lee Clark as Chuckles. Baker Margaret was Mare Winningham, good!
The story:
It starts with the queen narrating a story, saying that the king remarried, the most beautiful intelligent woman: me, she says, and adds “this is my story, not hers”. Dark magic invaded the happy kingdom so the king left and was never seen again. Ten years passed. For her to remain the most beautiful woman in all the land, “Snow would have to do what snow does best: Snow would have to fall”.
We meet SnowWhite in her room with a beautiful dress, talking to a bird. It’s her 18th birthday, but the queen tells her to never go out of her bedroom! All the servants wish her a happy birthday, and baker Margaret gives her her dad’s dagger (his gift to her when he left) and tells her it’s her kingdom and she should see it for herself.
We see a prince and his servant in the woods seeking out adventures, and indeed they find it. They are attacked by what they think are giants (rather stupidly if you take it seriously, because a man on stilt doesn’t look like a giant, looks like a man on stilts). They are actually the seven dwarves, who don’t take it well when he laughs in their faces and calls them children, how rude of him! They are not only robbed, but also left hanging upside down in their underwear.
When SnowWhite goes to explore her kingdom as suggested, she passes through the woods and meets them and frees them, then they separate because they go opposite ways. The prince goes to the castle: the queen was not in the mood for visitors but then Brighton tells her that “he’s young, handsome, and semi-nude” and she changes her mind. He’s Prince Alcott of Valencia, we learn, and she decides she wants to marry him. She wants to have a big ball in his honor but there’s no money, she’s broke and the People are starving, but she doesn’t care and orders for more taxes to be paid.
SnowWhite visits the village and it is very grey, with starving people and a depressing atmosphere all around. Brighton arrives to communicate about the new taxes (she’s dressed in bright yellow and he doesn’t see her); he says that all the money is used to protect them from the Beast!
Alcott’s man Renbock is not happy with this queen, who dressed him like a “pink profiterol”, and when he sends him to Valencia to come back with clothes and gold and stuff he tells him “I implore you to come back with me now, this queen radiance crazy” - the prince says “you know women always get crazy when there’s a prince around” ... which would have been funny when I was twelve, now it’s rather irritating. Doesn’t he realize that he’s merely a prince while she’s a queen, the ruler of the kingdom? Of course he’s the hero and she’s the villain, but still !
Renbock replies “no no no there’s ‘I’m in the same room as a prince’-crazy, and then there’s good old fashion, plain traditional psycho-crazy !”
SnowWhite comes back to tell baker Margaret that the people at the village are starving, that the queen destroyed her father’s happy kingdom. When she’s told that there’s a prince, she thinks he might help and attends the ball. She wears another pretty dress with a swan-hat, since they’re all supposed to resemble animals; she meets the prince who has a bunny-eared hat, and she tells him that she’s the princess and that she hopes he’ll help her because the queen terrorized the people of the land, but then the queen sees her and she tries to escape, but of course is caught. Snowwhite tells her that she saw the condition of the village and the queen goes: “someone’s been taking her confidence pills huh?” but then Snow says “technically I’m the rightful leader of this kingdom” which the queen doesn’t like, at all. Moments later she tells Brighton “I want her killed. Take her to the woods and feed her to the beast”. Brighton goes but is unable to kill her, instead he simply leaves her there telling her to run and don’t come back.
When SnowWhite wakes up in the dwarves home, they agree to let her stay one night and they tell her their names: Butcher is a sort of leader, Grimm is the coolest, Half Pint is the annoying one always hitting on her, Napoleon has the right hat, Chuck or Chuckles is the cheerful one, Grub is the one always eating and wolf is the one always howling.
After Brighton collects the new taxes for the queen, they attack him and rob him. SnowWhite has prepared dinner for them, but when she sees the money she tells them that it’s the people’s money and runs to give it back, saying that they’re heroes because they took it back for them...
Brighton goes back to the castle in his underwear and this time the prince is all: these bandits must be stopped!
The dwarves tell Snow that to become one of them she must become a thief ( and give to the people of course) so they teach her - she finds a new outfit (they had a lot of bizarre, big clothes there, but then they always take the clothes of the people they rob so.. :-p ), learns sword fighting, and the three-cards-game with a strawberry, and how to use a sling... all in one day apparently since next thing she meets the prince in the woods (come to find the bandits as he said) and she’s all ready. They meet but then the dwarves come to fight and to give her a sword, and he says “you’re with the bandits!” - “you’re with the queen!” and “you’re a traitor” - “you’re a jerk” and they fight and he is indeed a jerk, spanking her with the sword. At least he’s a better fighter! Yet she’s more cunning and has him kicked by his horse. He goes back to the castle again half-naked, saying the bandits’ leader was SnowWhite (leader? when did that happen?). The dialogue was rather funny though, culminating in “for the love of God can someone please get this man a shirt so I can concentrate!” :-p
She goes again to the mirror realm, entering with the magic words “mirror mirror on the wall”, where she asks her reflection for Snow dead, Brighton too (but settles for him punished), and a love potion for the prince, like the one she used on the king. She insists, saying that she’ll pay the price!
She gives the prince the love potion, but it’s puppy-love so now he acts, and sometimes sound, like a loving puppy: “there are pros and cons to this”.
The reflection-witch sends two puppet-monsters to kill Snow but they only find the dwarves and try to kill them (while she pulls their strings from her realm). Snow comes and saves them by cutting the strings. Now Snow wants to leave because she’s a danger to them, they find her note and decide to go after her right away, but she’s still outside :-p They convince her that she’s a princess and a leader and they go crashing the wedding which was to happen the very next day.
When the queen arrives, in a very fairy-queen dress, she finds everybody without their rich clothes and also that the prince has been stolen.
He keeps crying that he wants the queen and they understand he might be under a spell, so they try to break it with punches, tickling, bad smells, loud sounds... until Napoleon thinks of true love’s kiss and she’s all “it’s worth a try” and of course it works.
The queen goes personally to kill SnowWhite, with the Beast at her orders.
She locks them in saying this time the princess with save the prince, but he goes out anyway, and then them too (with snow balls...).
This is where the queen started her narration at the beginning of the movie, Snow must fall....
They are not much help to her but they manage to get her a knife, but looking into the big sweet sad eyes of the Beast she pities it and doesn’t kill it, instead she sees that the Beast has a moon-shaped pendant like the queen’s, and she breaks it, thus breaking the spell. The Beast transforms back into : the King! He’s alive! He remembers nothing and wonders why she’s all grown up.
The queen starts aging very quickly, discovering the price for using dark magic.
Snow marries the prince, and at the wedding the very old queen comes with the red apple “for good fortune, to the fairest of them all” but Snow understands it’s her and doesn’t bite it, instead she gives it back saying “age before beauty” and then “it’s important to know when you’ve been beaten yes?” like the queen had told her the first time we see them together. I was disappointed that she didn’t give more credit to Baker Margaret, she stayed in the back with Brighton...
The reflection says “so it was SnowWhite’s story after all” and the mirror real crashes, the mirror breaks, and it’s no more winter, finally.
Before the credits start, we see images of what the dwarves will be doing afterwards: boxer, hairdresser, circus, of course Grimm wrote a book of fairytale, HalfPint found a girlfriend, and during the big credits Snow sings “I believe I believe I believe in love...” and “the king’s back and the queen’s gone”... and it’s all very cheerful and colourful, like a Bollywood movie, very nice. Then the normal small credits start.
The costumes were all good and peculiar, and I also liked her bandit outfit, and the colours were so good and bright, and the blue during their fight at night was beautiful, and one other thing: when she was about to bite the apple, those seconds when she had her mouth open upon the apple, her lips were as perfect as a drawing, very pretty, was it all natural? How did they study that scene? Was it thanks to perfect makeup or what? Anyway, beautiful.
ITA Biancaneve
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