You know something is wrong with a Snow White movie, when the evil queen is looking better than Snow White herself.
Basically this is movie that is a very loose adaption of the brothers Grimm story, about Snow White and the seven dwarfs. Loose adaptation perhaps isn't the best way to say it. It's more of a very own and very different interpretation of the classic fairy tale, that changes lots of things around but unfortunately not in a very good or interesting enough way.
This project definitely had some potential in it but it doesn't dare to take things far enough. It now instead comes across as a lame, half attempt, at re-imagining, the classic fairy tale. What could had been a very atmospheric and perhaps also darker take on the story, works out as a lame and odd one instead.
I don't even really know how to take this movie in the first place. It's not adventurous enough for an adventure/fantasy movie, not funny or entertaining enough for a comedy and not serious enough for a drama. It seems that they were mostly going for a comical and entertaining approach but the humor is often so incredibly lame, simplistic and predictable, that this movie is only funny to watch for some young kids, who simply don't know any better yet. I don't know, perhaps this also was the crowd this movie was going for, since it certainly feels like a live action Disney movie at times but I just can't say for sure, since this movie is taking so many different different kinds of approaches at times, to its visual style and story.
Really, I like Tarsem Singh's his style and visual approach to all of his movies but he often seems to have some problems with the storytelling and focus of the story. This movie often goes all over the place. The first half is pretty much focusing on the evil queen, played by Julia Roberts, while the second half suddenly is all about Snow White. There is not a good enough balance between each of those two characters, as if Julia Roberts demanded she would get first billing and the writers, in a frenzy, changed the script around, which certainly went at the expensive of everything and everyone else in this movie.
There are still a couple of interesting visual moments in this movie, as you could expect from a Singh movie. However, yet the movie still doesn't feel like a very imaginative one, or like it is taking place in a magical fairy tale world. Instead the movie feels and looks like it is taking place in a studio, all the time. Besides, it also really seems like Tarsem Singh was holding back this time with his visual style, which was also really another disappointment about this movie.
Not a great movie at all!
5/10
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