Grimm's Snow White

Grimm's Snow White (2012)

** (out of 4)

With both MIRROR MIRROR and SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN hitting theaters in 2012, it was only a matter of time before The Asylum struck with their mockbuster. The story is pretty much the same that we're used to as the Queen (Jane March) wants Snow White (Eliza Bennett) out of the Kingdom but when the jobs not done she enters the Enchanted Forrest where the Prince (Jamie Thomas King) comes to her rescue. Being The Asylum, the wood creatures are actually dragons, which is the biggest change in the story. GRIMM'S SNOW WHITE isn't going to make you forget the Disney classic (or even the good silent version) but it's actually not too bad considering who made it. It seems that everyone on board was actually trying to make a good film and not just a cheap rip-off of something else out there, which is often the case for The Asylum. On a technical level the film is rather impressive as it has a professional look and it's put together rather nicely. I'd add that the editing was also good as was the cinematography. Another thing the film had going for it were the performances, which were actually good and I'd say they were much better than what we got in the bigger budgeted MIRROR MIRROR. Bennett made for a good Snow White as she delivered a certain charm and innocence that really came across. Another major plus was March as the Queen. After the controversial start to her career with films like THE LOVER and COLOR OF NIGHT, I was really interested in seeing her today and she was still a beauty and managed to be quite good in the role. I thought she was very good at playing the evil and she didn't have to be cute with it or go over-the-top. Of course, the low budget also means you get some pretty poor CGI effects with the dragons but to be fair the quality is actually a bit better than you'd typically get. Another problem is that after a while the film just loses all of its gas and momentum and quickly dies out. Obviously this film isn't going to be for everyone but it's certainly not as bad as it could have been.

I was dubious of whether to watch this movie as SyFy's resume ranges from a few tolerable, a lot of bad and a number of bottom-of-the-barrel movies. Grimm's Snow White didn't bowl me over, and I wasn't expecting it to, but as far as SyFy movies go they have done much worse than this. The costumes, sets and lighting actually do have a creative and colourful-fantasy-world-like look, while also showing a sense of darkness. The editing is not the choppy editing that I have associated with a lot of SyFy's films but more succinct, neither is it mind-blowingly amazing. The music score is also one of the better ones for a SyFy movie, instead of the generic and sluggish in tempo music SyFy movies often have, this one was suitably haunting with also a quite beautiful twinkling feel. Of the performances the best one was Jane March, her Wicked Queen is coldly beautiful and stoically sinister at the same time. On the other hand, this is where the negatives come. Eliza Bennett's Snow White, looking more like Alice in Wonderland than Snow White actually, I found to be lacking in innocence and she had a wooden way of delivering her lines. Jamie Thomas King also does very little with such an admittedly drab role. They are not helped by really stilted writing, and while the story did start off promisingly it quickly lost drive and became very disjointed in its structure. The sense of drama in the latter part of the film was lacking for me, the bit with the ring didn't make much sense and when people in the battle sequence were supposed to be dead you could tell they weren't. The characters I just didn't care anything for, apart from the Queen they were written very superficially and felt little more than fantasy clichés. The effects have been worse, but there is still a lot of artificiality going on, especially with the dragons. All in all, could have been worse and SyFy have done worse too but Grimm's Snow White didn't do very much for me. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Poor acting, poorly scripted, badly drawn CGI graphics, yellow stick-on ears that don't fit the wearer, a lack of depth in the characters, an incredibly small elf army representing the whole of the elf population, CGI dogs that can't jump gaps and just fall into them, guards who don't really pay very much attention to whether their queen is under threat or not, a serious lack of dwarfs, an ugly hag who's supposed to be the 2nd most beautiful woman in the kingdom and wears a dress that's massively too big for her and is lacking in any jewellery, and snow white has blonde hair and pink lips. Need I say any more?

While the story has an interesting take on the tale we're all too familiar with it's lacking proper care and whoever did the makeup needs shooting. Couldn't even be bothered to paint the ears to make them the same skin colour as the wearer or attempt at hiding the seams so it looks like they're wearing fake ears.

This was pretty good. I think the scenery was absolutely lush and beautiful and made half the movie. The action didn't flag, and the characters were mostly stock but well defined and played.

I know this sounds like faint praise. But, for a production produced by The Asylum, this is very very good.

I've seen a few of their 'mock' busters. This was much better than their usual, cheap fare.

If you like fantasy, with a beautiful central/southern European flavor, then watch this.

The stepmother was well played, as were many of the elf characters. The only miscasting was Snow White. She was the wrong one for that role. But fortunately Snow White had a small part, for all that the title promises.

In this age of high end special effects, they managed pretty well using basic computer graphics tools. Pretty soon, special effects in films of any budget will be good.

Let's have a look back on the past Asylum films that they invented. 666: The Beast, 666: The Child and also, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. THOSE films were terrible with a capital T. I saw another film produced by The Asylum not long ago with Ving Rhames 'Zombie Apocalypse' compare all those films to their latest ones now, they're improving just very slowly. They're not cheesy as much any more, their films are not in low quality, also they're hiring actors who are known to the community. I'm waiting for some of their new films that are going to be released soon Golden Winter, Super Cyclone, Nazis at the centre of the earth and also Alien Origin. Sure, Grimm's snow white wasn't as exciting but it's definitely an improvement from The Asylum. -Trent Browning