Mirror Mirror

One of the two Snow White movies to come out this year, it was made by the same man who brought us Immortals last year. Our story opens with the Queen (Julie Roberts) narrating the events so far, with her husband the king having vanished in the forest and her step-daughter, young Snow (Lily Collins), being her cloistered ward. Enter Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer).

Alcott and his trusty servant are out for adventure when they are attacked by giants, conspicuously 7 of them. They were getting trounced when the prince managed to topple one of them. The giant's legs retract and suddenly we have an annoyed dwarf. The prince foolishly insults the dwarves and soon finds himself hanging by his ankles with only his pants. Meanwhile, it is Snow's 18th birthday and a busybody baker (Mare Winningham) has put ideas in her head that she is the rightful ruler and should see the state of the realm under the wicked queen's watch. Snow leaves the castle, wanders the realm, and stumbles upon the nearly naked prince.

The story deviates from the classic tale with Snow mostly saving the prince rather than the other way around. Rather than the huntsman taking Snow to the woods to cut out her heart, we have Brighton (Nathan Lane) the cowardly brown-noser who lets her flee into the woods and brave the beast that haunts it. She meets the dwarves who take a liking to her and, in the classic movie training, make her an awesome and confident warrior princess in no time at all. Truly, no time. The prince indicates that only one day has passed during her extensive martial training. To their credit, the prince was still a better swordsman but she defeated him nonetheless. The poisoned apple makes only a cameo and it is Snow who saves the prince with true love's kiss.

The prince does not come off well. One wonders what Snow sees in him. Oh, he banters well enough but he got his butt kicked by dwarves (twice!), was ensorcelled by the queen, gets beaten by the hardly-trained Snow in a sword fight, and must be rescued repeatedly. I am amazed any self-respecting actor took the role. Then again, it is a comedy and no men come off well in this movie.

Setting aside the silly stilts that transform them into giants, the dwarves are an entertaining bunch. They are not named Happy, Dopy, Doc, etc. but they do have characteristics that would fit the original descriptive names. Rather than miners, they are bandits, taking revenge on the Queen who banished them from the kingdom for being ugly. Thus, it seems they are not a race of dwarves but just humans, which doubtless explains the lack of beards.

Julia Roberts as the queen was not the best choice. She is conniving and mean but not menacing. She has several comic scenes, which really detract from the evil queen persona. Plus, her trademark laugh just doesn't fit with the role. Then again, this is mostly a comedy. In a switch from the original, the queen puts the moves on Prince Alcott with notions of marrying him for his money; she had driven this kingdom to bankruptcy and needs the cash. Roberts also plays the mirror, which is an emotionless version of the queen with unspecified but considerable magical powers. The relationship between queen and mirror is never explained though they are inextricably linked.

Much like Immortals, the look is very distinctive. The outfits of the nobility are ludicrous and full of such crazy colors. The rainbow of vibrant colors that was not limited to clothing was bizarre and mostly annoying; there were blue and purple wigs in geometric shapes and starkly clashing garments. The soldiers in the realm wore all black except for a golden helmet that looked like something out of Zardoz. The costumes were too often silly and impractical, which certainly reminded me of Immortals with those crazy helmets on the gods. In the end, the king (played by Sean `Boromir' Bean) returns and, in addition to being dressed in a silly outfit, he has a Don Johnson beard; he looked rather scraggly for a king; I hope Sean got a good payday out of it.

The movie credits play during a Bollywood singing and dancing extravaganza in the throne room where Snow sings `I believe in love.' Lily Collins is Phil Collins' daughter, so the closing music video is probably appropriate.

All in all, it is just okay. Wait for it on broadcast TV.

Immortals

Long ago, two bands of Immortals did battle and discovered that they could be killed by one another. The victors of this battle, led by Zeus, declared themselves gods. The losers, named titans, were imprisoned in Mount Tartarus. Now that they are gods, Zeus declared that they would take no direct role in the world of humans on penalty of death. Many years later, the gods are viewed as little more than superstition by a large portion of the population. Angry that the gods did not spare his family from death, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) wants to abolish the gods by unleashing the titans. His army is marching across Greece.

Theseus (Henry Cavill) is a capable youth in a cliff side village though he is of low status because his mother, Aethra, was raped to beget him. His mother is a devout worshipper of the gods though Theseus is a non-believer. He has been taught to fight by a kindly old man (John Hurt). It turns out that the old man is really Zeus (Luke Evans) in disguise.

The village is attacked and Theseus leaps into action to save his mother's life. He kills a number of King Hyperion's men before he is brought down in a net. Hyperion steps forward and slits Aethra's throat and sentences Theseus to slavery. He is taken to the temple where the Phaedra (Frieda Pinto) the Oracle is held. As chance would have it, Phaedra beholds a vision when she briefly brushes against the near catatonic Thesues. She plans an escape, enlisting the aid of Stavros the Thief (Stephen Dorff).

Hyperion's interest in the Oracle was to locate the Epirus Bow, a powerful weapon lost during the battle between god and titan. He needs it to unleash the titans. Her escape proves a nuisance. He dispatches the Beast, a huge man who wears a bull's head made out of barbed wire. While in the labyrinthine temple near his village, Theseus is attacked by the Beast mere moments after discovering the Epirus Bow. It comes as no surprise that he kills the Minotaur.

Armed with this weapon of power, Theseus stumbles into an obvious trap and loses it. Before Hyperion's men can kill him, Ares in a ludicrous spiky headdress (it doesn't qualify as a helmet) comes down from Mount Olympus and slaughters them with his war hammer. No sooner has he saved the day than Zeus appears and kills him. Yes, Zeus kills Ares. Don't recall that from Greek mythology.

Zeus tells Theseus that he has faith in humanity to avert the evil of Hyperion. So it is that Theseus travels to Mount Tartarus to lead the defenders in protecting the prison of the Titans. The effort fails. Hyperion succeeds in blasting open the Titans' prison with the bow and the gods come down from Mount Olympus to face them. Led by Zeus, there is Athena, Heracles, Poseidon, and Apollo. The Titans - all unnamed - have speckled gray skin and snarls. The hard to follow battle shows the gods wreaking havoc at super-speed. You know the type: you knock a guy off his feet and while he is falling, you kill a couple guys, then come back to hammer the falling guy into the ground. And yet there are always more Titans to kill. It's like their prison was a clown car spilling more and more clowns to do battle. In the end, only Zeus is standing and the remaining titans are closing in. Samson-like, he pulls Mount Tartarus down upon them.

Meanwhile, Theseus is in an epic battle with Hyperion. One wonders what the point is. He's already unleashed the titans. So the two pummel one another for what seems an eternity. Finally, Theseus wins but apparently dies in the process. However, he is transported to Olympus, presumably to take his place among them.
The movie concludes with Phaedra living in Theseus' village by the sea, raising their son, Acamas. While looking upon the statue erected in his father's honor, Acamas meets the Old Man (Zeus in disguise). Ah, the circle continues.

The movie has a very peculiar look. The director (Tarsem Singh) wanted to make an action film with the look of Renaissance painting. All too often, the movie is dark. It is amazing how often stuff was done at night or in dimly-lit rooms. Some of the outfits are goofy, notably the headgear of the gods or the silly helmet of Hyperion.

The Epirus Bow is straight out of the Dungeons &Dragons cartoon. You pull on the string and a magical glowing arrow appears. The arrow is amazingly powerful, able to blast a 6 foot diameter hole in a fortified gate. It is based on nothing, as there is no basis for it in Greek Myth. Sure, there are famous archers - Heracles, Apollo, Artemis - but no magical bows. The closest I recall would be the bow of Heracles that was, after his death, used to slay Paris of Troy during the Trojan War.

This is an artistic rewrite of the tale of Theseus. Theseus, son of Poseidon by Aethra, is most noteworthy for having slain the Minotaur in the labyrinth of King Minos. He had escaped from the Labyrinth thanks to the intervention of Minos' daughter, Ariadne. She had fallen in love with him but he spurned her once the Minotaur was dead. While adventuring in the Amazon lands, Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, fell in love with him. They had a child, a son named Hippolytus. Phaedra was his second wife who, oddly enough, fell in love with Hippolytus! Unpopular in Athens, Theseus fled to Skyros. Lycomedes, king in Skyros, feared that Theseus would depose him so he pushed the great hero off a cliff. Though he killed a variety of villains in his mythic career, the film reflects almost none of it.

I'm not clear on why the story bothers with Greek myth since it is almost unrecognizable except for the names. The Olympians were not a `hands off' bunch of deities. During the Trojan War – Theseus' son, Acamas, is one of the soldiers in the Trojan Horse, while the Gods are on the battlefield and sending down aid from the heavens. They are intimately involved. Odysseus was lost at sea for 10 years because Poseidon was angry with him. Hera constantly tried to kill Heracles (Hercules), starting with a pair of snakes in his crib! They are only too happy to mettle in the affairs of men.

It has its moments but is generally a weak film.