Review - Mirror Mirror

Grade: B-

Yang: Roberts carries this flick on her smile; only Armie Hammer tries to keep up. Amazing set design and art direction contribute to a tangibly fantastical world.

Yin: Thin plot with uninspired twist on the Snow White character; pacing and entertainment value suffer when weaker actors ***coughLilyCollinscough*** take center stage

In-Between: A Bollywood number awaits those who stay for the credits. Take that as you will.

All I remember about Tarsem Singh’s last feature, the stunning slog that was Immortals, was fist-fighting with the sandman.

Singh has a great eye for visual design and a real talent for creating the type of dazzling eye candy that belongs in an art gallery as much as it does on the silver screen. The problem with his films are the flimsy stories meant to support his peculiar visions. In this respect, his latest, and the first volley in 2012 War of the Snow White adaptations, Mirror Mirror is not much different, but at least it has more than a few charming performances to make the proceedings more than bearable.

As is the trend these days, Mirror Mirror spins the classic tale of Snow White on its axis and flips the perspective to that of the evil Queen, this time played with snide infectiousness by Julia Roberts and her wide-tooth grin. Mirror Mirror starts just before the classic apple handoff with Snow White (Lily Collins) confined to her room for years in the wake of her father’s disappearance. In the absence of the king, the Queen has taken control of the magical no-name kingdom and run its finances into the ground, thanks to her penchant for unabashed luxury, while the working class denizens of the castle and the neighboring village struggle to eat and live indoors. Meanwhile, Snow White’s desperate desire to breathe fresh air leads her to escape the castle and journey into the forbidden woods just beyond the kingdom’s border where she runs afoul of and falls in love at first sight with the handsome, slightly pompous Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer), who has been upended by a gang of seven thieves on stilts. After an assist from the cute alabaster skinned princess, the Prince makes his way to the Queen’s castle where he again crosses paths with Snow, who is promptly banished for escaping her room again. Left to fend for herself in the forbidden woods, Snow falls in within seven dwarves, who may or may not be on the up and up, and sets out to usurp the Queen before she can romance the good Prince Alcott and tighten her grip on the kingdom.

One thing Singh absolutely nails with Mirror Mirror is, unsurprisingly, the visual sense of whimsy and the fantastic. From set design to cinematography, the snow-covered world of Mirror Mirror looks every inch a realm of slightly askew fantasy that could easily double as a new section in Islands of Adventure. The visual idiosyncrasy of the kingdom enlivens the admittedly thin story in a way that Singh’s similar approach to the world of Ancient Greece never did in Immortals. This is exactly what audiences would expect a storybook realm would look like, and for that achievement, Singh deserves a sincere tip of the hat.

The characters who exist in Singh’s off-kilter magical world are equally off-centre, displaying the sort of over-the-top, snarky, self-aware personalities that the cast of Once Upon a Time only wishes they could show off. Despite top billing, Julia Roberts steals the show with her haughty, quirky take on a Queen who is not so much evil but desperately vain. She chews so much scenery it’s a wonder any was left for the rest of the cast to stand on, but compared to most depictions of the Evil Queen, which revel in vacuous sneering, Roberts’ infectiously mischievous take is breath of fresh air.

The only member of the cast who seems in on the same joke as Roberts is Armie Hammer, whose Prince Alcott is so imperfectly pompous and pretentious that he’s clearly a better match for Roberts’ Queen than Collins’ innocent, cutesy Snow, who does little, even after taking a level in badass, to change any perceptions about Snow that haven’t been altered by works like Fables. Nathan Lane also flitters about in the background as the Queens’ right hand man, but he is clearly outmatched by Roberts overwhelming delirium. The seven dwarves--including veterans Martin Klebba, Mark Povinelli, and Danny Woodburn--are spritely and charming enough that the good people at Disney may need to file suit. Mirror Mirror may not host the greatest performances, but at least the actors keep things more interesting than the frowny cusses in Immortals ever did.

All things considered, Mirror Mirror is far more charming than it could have been, considering its pedigree. As the more kid-friendly of the two Snow White adaptations being released this year, the flick is upbeat and snarky to a fault, but it is colorful and charming enough to keep the audience, especially the little ones, enrapt for most of the runtime, with only minimal pacing issues n the middle. If Mirror Mirror was released before Immortals, I might have had more respect for his talents as a storyteller. As it is, I have gained a measure of respect, but I wonder if that is due more to the talent in front of or behind the camera.

Review: Larry Crowne

Grade: B

The Good: Charming and consistent in delivering heartwarming humor. Hanks and Roberts deliver as only Academy Award winners could.

The Bad: Crowded cast leads to some underserved performances from great actors. Clearly designed as older-skewing counterprogramming.

The Ugly: Hanks in tightie whiteys. Nuff’ said.

Full disclosure: I’m not a big Tom Hanks fan. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with his acting or even his films. They’ve just never really captured my attention. If I had to venture a guess, it’s because most of Tom Hanks performances occur in classically styled movies that hearken back to a more innocent era of filmmaking and storytelling that runs counter to the edgier cinema I grew up with.

That said, I was genuinely charmed and entertained by Hanks’ Larry Crowne, a cute comic tale of one man’s journey through his first semester of college after his life is turned beyond upside down. Crowne, directed by and starring Hanks, follows former retail specialist the eponymous Larry Crowne as he navigates his first semester of college in the wake of being fired from big box retailer, UMart (a fictional, but still unholy, merging of Target and Wal-Mart). In his first semester, Crowne, who went from high school to the navy to retail work, encounters bubbly free spirit Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw of NBC’s Undercover fame), eccentric Econ maestro Dr. Matsutani (George Takei, clearly enjoying himself way too much), and disenchanted speech professor Mercy Tainot (Julia Roberts, delivering wonderful energy and range), who just might change Crowne’s life, or vice versa.

Crowne opens with some solid, if not entirely original, observations on life in recession-afflicted America. When audiences first meet Larry, he is the master of his domain. He is fully invested in his, admittedly unglamorous, job. He drives a gas-guzzling SUV and lives in cozy rancher that he probably shouldn’t be able to afford on a TargetMart salary. Larry’s unceremonious firing—for what has to be the most contrived reason possible (lacking a college education is reason enough to fire a long term employee in retail, really?)—and some nudging from his wacky next door neighbor, yard sale entrepreneur Lamar (Cedric the Entertainer), leads him to enroll in his local community college, trade his SUV in for a hip fuel-efficient scooter and start rocking vintage threads. The problem with most of these changes is that they are all thrust upon Larry rather than being the result of active personal growth. The fact that Larry is a bit of a passive lead doesn’t cripple the story, but it does keep him from truly owning his growth.

Every person or class Crowne encounters challenges him to rethink his life, but none more so than Julia Roberts’ Mercy Tainot, who is facing her own life crisis with a middling career and a lazy husband (Bryan Cranston) who would rather surf for porn than work. Roberts doesn’t bring her trademark high energy to the proceedings until the midpoint, but her evocation of Tainot’s crushing ennui in the early goings is pretty spot-on. Anybody’s who’s been generally fed up with where life has taken you will find a lot of common ground with the early stages of Roberts’ performance. Interestingly, Roberts spends most of the movie dealing with her circumstance in relative isolation. Sure, any viewer with a passing familiarity of popular cinema knows how her story will end, but allowing her character, and Hanks’, to grow without sharing every scene helps to dial back some of the typical rom-com tropes that sneak into better films.

By avoiding some clichés of modern dramedies, Hanks, directing his second feature since 1996’s That Thing You Do, focuses intently on a charming cast of slightly off-kilter characters. Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s is the breakout here, playing the manic pixie dream girl the way it should be played, as the agent of change rather than the object of affection. Here infectious positivity and freewheeling attitude recall that of a young Julia Roberts, whose early subtle antagonism with the character could double as commentary on the way older actresses view their “replacements”. Mbatha-Raw is only one of a star-studded cast that is so packed with talent that many are criminally under- or misused, especially Bryan Cranston and Taraji P. Henson. However, the sheer abundance talent in front of and behind the camera—including My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s Nia Vardalos as co-writer along with Hanks—ensures that Crowne is no amateur night. It may not be riotous, but it is consistently funny, due in no small measure to performances that focus on character-based humor rather than sight gags or cheap shots.

Some more full disclosure: I’m probably outside of the target demo for Larry Crowne, but as adjunct at my local community college, I was intrigued to see a big screen take on the institution. Between this and Community, it’s almost as if community college is becoming a thing. Almost.

Regardless of content and target demos, Larry Crowne is the definition of a feel-good movie going experience. It’s not particularly edgy or challenging, but the great character work and consistency of good-natured humor should hit the sweet spot in the hearts of audiences of all ages. Sadly, Crowne is clearly being setup as counterprogramming to some movie about robotic cars, or some such nonsense, but that doesn’t mean it deserves to be overlooked. Take a cue from Larry Crowne himself and do the opposite of what is expected of most moviegoers this holiday weekend by giving this flick a chance.