Mirror, Mirror 
 
 (out of 4) 
 
 Starring Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Armie Hammer and Nathan Lane. Directed by Tarsem Singh. 106 minutes. Opens March 30 at major theatres. PG 
 
 The first volley in the froth-vs.-goth wars between two film versions of the Snow White fairytale has been fired with Mirror, Mirror. 
 
 It opens Friday, two months ahead of the June 1 bow for the more sinister-looking Snow White and the Huntsman. 
 
 Mirror, Mirror takes itself less seriously, presenting a pink confection of slapstick laughs and swashbuckling heroics that references the classic Disney cartoon liberally, with sly winks to the genre — right down to cliché teeth twinkles. 
 
 The story gets a 2012 girl-power update: no more waiting for a prince to save the day. Women don’t escape the fairytale slap-down entirely, however; the villain is still a vain old gal who can’t deal with all of her stepdaughter’s fabulousness. But this Snow White will see to her own destiny. 
 
 Director Tarsem Singh certainly knows his way around fantasy filmmaking (Immortals, The Fall) but can he also bring a light touch to the dramatics? It’s a legitimate question in the face of the horribly overwrought Immortals. Turns out he can, although don’t look for much more than that. This rambling version of Snow White’s tale is a pretty, spun-sugar confection, airy as a plate of Easter egg-coloured macarons and similarly devoid of substance. 
 
 Everything about Mirror, Mirror echoes old-school animation and the entire thing is gorgeous, from the high-concept snow-covered forest to a human form of a game of Battleship, where three-masted vessels nestle atop players’ heads like fanciful hats. 
 
 This is the last film for Oscar-winning (Dracula) Japanese costume designer Eiko Ishioka, who died in January. She and Singh teamed earlier on Immortals, The Fall and The Cell, and it’s fitting that the film is dedicated to her, given the lift her work gives Mirror, Mirror. The elaborate costumes are stunning, especially the fanciful animal-themed masked ball outfits with over-the-top headdresses. 
 
 Julia Roberts stars as The Queen, nasty stepmother to Snow White (Lily Collins and her massive eyebrows), sliding from America’s sweetheart to icily evil beauty with ease. Easily bored and self-absorbed, the years are piling up and Queenie is hardly happy about it, using a magical mirror with a surprising inhabitant to keep herself looking fresh. 
 
 The Queen’s devoted servant Brighton (Nathan Lane doing a fantastic Nathan Lane) simpers and cowers as he reluctantly does all her bidding. There’s no retirement plan for toadies in this kingdom. 
 
 Snow spends most of her time locked up in her bedroom, missing her father, the King, who disappeared in the woods where he was likely devoured by the beast who lives there. Now 18, she’d like to get out of her room occasionally, but The Queen has other plans for her. 
 
 The arrival of a handsome prince (Armie Hammer as Prince Alcott) stirs the pot. He’s buff and a bit of a buffoon, but the Queen sees a chance to help the kingdom she’s bankrupted with her party excesses by marrying him. Too bad he only has eyes for Show White, a wrinkle the Queen deals with by ordering Brighton to drop her rival off in the dark woods to be part of the beast’s buffet. 
 
 Jason Keller, whose last screenplay was for the ham-fisted Machine Gun Preacher, delivers whimsy by the bucket here, teaming the abandoned Snow up with seven rebel forest dwellers who don’t take well to being called dwarves. Onetime model citizens and business owners banished to the woods by the Queen for looking “different,” they’ve found amusing means to measure up and prefer to make money the Robin Hood way rather than by toiling in a mine. 
 
 Among them, we meet Grub (Joe Gnoffo), who loves food, perpetually lovesick Half Pint (Mark Povinelli) and writer Grimm (Danny Woodburn). London, Ont., actor Jordan Prentice plays Napoleon, the de facto leader of the group without a short man syndrome. 
 
 Collins, daughter of musician Phil, does well in her first big leading role as a lively Snow, showing a good comic sensibility. But those Groucho Marx eyebrows are a constant distraction. 
 
 From the CGI-created castle to the Bollywood-inspired final dance number, Mirror, Mirror is aimed straight at the eyeballs. But it bypasses the heart in the process. ||||| Who’s the Most Self-Absorbed of Them All? ‘Mirror Mirror,’ Tarsem Singh’s Snow White Story 
 
 Is it possible for filmmakers to still peddle the old “once upon a time” in the age of Katniss Everdeen, the ferocious teenage warrior from “The Hunger Games”? The answer, from the evidence of Tarsem Singh’s “Mirror Mirror,” a would-be comic and cheeky redo of Snow White, is yes, but not persuasively. The princess (Lily Collins) here smiles obligingly while flouncing about in a gown, but she also helps write her own happily ever after with a sword. Whether that makes her a feminist heroine or just another self-actualized Disneyesque waif may depend on your idea of empowerment. (In June the fairy tale gets another makeover in “Snow White and the Huntsman.” ) 
 
 Written by, among others, the Brothers Grimm and waggishly retrofitted for “Mirror Mirror” by Marc Klein and Jason Keller, the essential story is as you probably remember it, only with jokes: a widower King remarries, giving the realm a new Queen (Julia Roberts, seemingly very self-amused), and his only child, Snow White, a mother. But when the King disappears, a turn that’s represented in the film by a striking animated sequence, Snow White falls into the grasping hands of the Queen, who turns out to be a pathological narcissist suffering from possible delusions. (She talks to her mirror.) You know the rest — seven dwarfs, a prince, a girl’s youth, a woman’s vanity — all familiar pieces that are both this movie’s strength and its gravest flaws. 
 
 Mr. Singh started out directing music videos. The short form suits him. “Mirror Mirror” runs a long 95 minutes, but it’s a virtual breeze when compared with his previous movie, “Immortals,” a camp farrago set in ancient Greece (by way of a Vegas floor show), that runs an enervating 110 minutes. Critics like to take note of Mr. Singh’s eye-catching visuals, and there’s no doubt he knows how to swank up performers and sets or rather hire talented professionals to do the job for him. The costumes in “Mirror Mirror” — by turns ethereal as a dream and as ponderous as sculptured marble — were created by Mr. Singh’s regular collaborator, the Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka. (Ms. Ishioka, who also designed the costumes for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula,” died in January.) 
 
 Yet while Mr. Singh knows how to make performers and sets look good, he has trouble putting them into vibrant, kinetic, meaningful play, which effectively means that he’s a better window dresser than a movie director. “Mirror Mirror” is consistently watchable, even when it drifts into dullness because Mr. Singh always gives you something to look at, whether it’s the Queen’s blood-red gown, the sailing clouds decorating her bedroom or the dwarfs’ woodland home. Everything looks as if it has been meticulously selected for this or that spot, including the performers. Ms. Roberts, Ms. Collins and Armie Hammer, as Prince Alcott, look as pretty as fairy-book illustrations, but their performances are similarly one dimensional, as if they had been art directed into place instead of cut loose. 
 
 The only lead performer to wiggle free of Mr. Singh’s heavy hand is Nathan Lane, who plays the Queen’s henchman, Brighton, and whose amusingly tremulous, cagey performance owes much to Bob Hope. Mr. Lane is the only performer who sounds comfortable delivering Mr. Klein and Mr. Keller’s often intentionally anachronistic dialogue, which, with its forced lightness and scattershot jokes, makes an awkward fit with Mr. Singh’s lugubriousness. All of the scripted yuks register as an attempt to modernize the movie, as does affording Snow the chance to play a role in her own rescue, mostly by giving her a sword and putting her in palazzo pants. That’s nice, even if in the end it comes down to the same old story of love, glory and the devastating cost of female wrinkles. 
 
 “Mirror Mirror” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Slapstick violence. 
 
 Mirror Mirror 
 
 Opens on Friday nationwide. 
 
 Directed by Tarsem Singh; written by Marc Klein and Jason Keller, based on a story by Melisa Wallack; director of photography, Brendan Galvin; edited by Robert Duffy and Nick Moore; music by Alan Menken; choreography by Paul Becker; production design by Tom Foden; costumes by Eiko Ishioka; produced by Bernie Goldmann, Ryan Kavanaugh and Brett Ratner; released by Relativity Media. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. 
 
 WITH: Julia Roberts (the Queen), Lily Collins (Snow White), Armie Hammer (Prince Alcott), Nathan Lane (Brighton) and Sean Bean (the King). ||||| Encased in a coffin, waiting to be brought back to life: That's how Snow White spends a good portion of the folk story that bears her name. There's no such downtime for the princess in the snappy retelling "Mirror Mirror," a fractured fairy tale that occupies the divide between Disney and Grimm.A booster shot of testosterone lends kinetic kick to director Tarsem Singh 's visually inventive interpretation, without shortchanging the requisite froufrou or sugarcoating the story's dark Oedipal heart. The mash-up can be choppy, but the fable zings along on the sharp comic timing of the cast, led by a royally wicked Julia Roberts The screenplay by Marc Klein and Jason Keller (a screen story credit goes to Melisa Wallack) pointedly rewrites the fairy-tale convention that finds every damsel helplessly imperiled until a prince delivers her from danger. This Snow White ( Lily Collins ) can get gussied up with the best of them, but she also holds her own in a fencing duel. And — hello, switcheroo — she rescues a prince in distress.When in exile, Snow (it's a first-name-informal kingdom) receives martial-arts instruction from the dwarfs. Like the famous septet from Disney's 1937 classic, this woods-dwelling crew provides collective-sidekick slapstick, and each has a character-defining shtick — most memorably the love-struck Half Pint (Mark Povinelli). But they've also been restored to their folk tale roots as bandits and outcasts. They're action antiheroes with hearts of gold.Transforming Snow White to an action hero in her own right doesn't lessen the archetypal power of the stepmother-daughter, age-beauty conflict. Collins ( "The Blind Side" ) is a convincing foil for Roberts' jealous Queen, personifying intelligence, innate goodness and fairest-of-them-all femininity. If a movie-star self-regard has crept into Roberts' work over the years, here she uses it to winning effect, savoring the tension and silliness, and making an exceptionally entertaining evil monarch.Advised and chided by the alter ego who resides on the other side of her magic mirror — one of the film's more striking elements — the Queen sets her sights on an imperial merger with Prince Alcott ( Armie Hammer ), whose province's resources would save her from the brink of bankruptcy.Hammer, who brought an air of wounded regality to the Winklevoss twins in "The Social Network" and Clyde Tolson in "J. Edgar," gets to shake off the aggrievement and let his princely flag fly, often without a shirt.Singh (a.k.a. Tarsem Singh Dhandwar or simply Tarsem) is a fantasist whose singular knack for spectacle can also be his weakness, set-piece razzle-dazzle not infrequently overwhelming the characters in his previous films: "The Cell," "The Fall" and "Immortals." That weakness reveals itself in "Mirror Mirror" when he stops the story cold to indulge in a puppet sequence.But mostly the built-in structure of a well-known tale helps to rein him in, as does the propulsive rhythm of one-liners — some of the best are delivered with panache by Nathan Lane and Robert Emms, as mouthy servants. For most of its running time, the film strikes the right balance of make-believe enchantment and snark-infused lampoon, playing to older kids and adults alike.Crucial to the movie's magic are Tom Foden's lush and witty production design and the splendid costumes by Eiko Ishioka, the renowned designer's final screen work before her death in January. The finery and regalia of their contributions are integral to Singh's vision, giving this mostly conventional princess story its fair share of romantic froth and more than a little moxie. ||||| Mirror Mirror 
 
 March 28, 2012 
 
 Cast & Credits The Queen Julia Roberts 
 
 Snow White Lily Collins 
 
 Prince Alcott Armie Hammer 
 
 Brighton Nathan Lane 
 
 Napoleon Jordan Prentice 
 
 Half Pint Mark Povinelli 
 
 Grub Joe Gnoffo 
 
 Grimm Danny Woodburn 
 
 Wolf Sebastian Saraceno 
 
 Butcher Martin Klebba 
 
 Chuckles Ronald Lee Clark 
 
 Charles Renbock Robert Emms 
 
 Baker Margaret Mare Winningham 
 
 Baron Michael Lerner 
 
 King Sean Bean 
 
 
 
 Relativity Media presents a film directed by Tarsem Singh. Screenplay by Marc Klein and Jason Keller, based on stories by the Brothers Grimm. Running time: 106 minutes. MPAA rating: PG (some fantasy action and mild rude humor). Printer-friendly » 
 
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 "Mirror Mirror" is a sumptuous fantasy for the eyes and a pinball game for the mind, as story elements collide and roll around bumping into each other. This is not a faithful retelling of the versions by the Brothers Grimm or Walt Disney, but neither is it a satire, nor much of a story in its own right. But it's great to look at. If there's a major difference from the earlier versions, it's how this one has beefed-up roles for the seven dwarves, who here seem to be a merry band in search of Robin Hood. Nor do I recall earlier battles with a giant winged griffin. 
 
 The look of the film owes everything to the director, Tarsem Singh, an India-born former TV commercial maker, famous for two of the best-looking movies I've ever seen, "The Cell" (2000) and "The Fall" (2006). He's in love with spectacular landscapes and architecture, and in all of his films (including the underwhelming "The Immortals" in 2011) the costumes of the late Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka dominate every scene they're in and every character they're worn by. 
 
 
 
 Julia Roberts seems particularly well-suited to wear them, and when first seen is wearing a magnificent orange gown and seated on a seashell throne which acts as a frame and a continuation of the costume. Roberts plays the Queen in a kingdom we're introduced to by her opening narration -- which uses animated dolls figures to fill us in on her early life, during which she was married to a King (Sean Bean) who promptly set off into the forest and was not seen again. That left her as the autocratic ruler of a kingdom with painfully high taxes, and the stepmother of Snow White (Lily Collins), who is a captive in the castle until she's 18. 
 
 
 
 There is a financial crisis. Brighton (Nathan Lane), her aide and accountant, tells her she's broke. That comes at an inconvenient time, because Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) has wandered into the kingdom, and the Queen knows if she marries him, he can solve her finances. Problem is, she can't even afford the royal ball at which she plans for them to fall in love. 
 
 
 
 The Prince has already met Snow White; they were both wandering in the woods when they encountered the seven dwarfs, jolly bandits with good hearts. It is Snow White and not the Prince in this version who bestows a life-changing kiss. It's almost uncanny in some scenes here, how Lily Collins (daughter of Phil Collins) looks like Audrey Hepburn. 
 
 
 
 She's all sweet, all innocent, but Julia Roberts steals the show with her imperious and autocratic Queen. She consults her own image in a mirror, located as only Tarsem would place it in a weird structure in the middle of a lake. She never asks who is the fairest of them all, and thus never has to hear the inevitable answer, but the Queen's vanity and fear of aging give Roberts some plum scenes. Consider the one where she's having a spa-style beauty makeover before the ball. Her lips become bee-stung with the help of real bees, she gets a manicure from disgusting wormy creatures, and her skin is refreshed with a preparation made up from parrot droppings. Yes, parrot droppings, and we see the parrots dropping them. 
 
 
 
 All of this is in place and looks great, but the dialogue is rather flat, the movie sort of boring, and there's not much energy in the two places it should really be felt: Between the Queen and Snow White, and between Snow and the Prince. The story is a listless tale that moves at a stately pace through settings that could have supported fireworks. Indeed, the characters who seem to care the most about each other are the dwarfs.
– The latest retelling of Snow White (before June's Snow White and the Huntsman) is a lot like its vain queen: visually stunning, but kind of shallow. Critics aren't particularly impressed with Mirror Mirror: Though director Tarsem Singh "knows how to make performers and sets look good, he has trouble putting them into vibrant, kinetic, meaningful play," notes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. That "effectively means that he’s a better window dresser than a movie director." In the Toronto Star, Linda Barnard agrees. "Everything about Mirror Mirror echoes old-school animation and the entire thing is gorgeous," she notes. It's "a pretty, spun-sugar confection, airy as a plate of Easter egg-colored macarons and similarly devoid of substance." The script doesn't hold up to the visuals, writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "The dialogue is rather flat, the movie sort of boring," he notes. It's "a listless tale that moves at a stately pace through settings that could have supported fireworks." In the Los Angeles Times, however, Sheri Linden sees a lot to like. "The fable zings along on the sharp comic timing of the cast, led by a royally wicked Julia Roberts" as the queen. It's "a fractured fairy tale that occupies the divide between Disney and Grimm."