Mirror Mirror
Release Date:
March 30, 2012
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 115/169 |
Max Braden |
I think it was smart that the actors didn't take this too seriously, since it provided a light mood. Still, it looked like a very made-for-ABC-Family-Channel production. |
Screen legend Julia Roberts has been a card carrying member of the Hollywood elite since Pretty Woman was released in 1990. In industry terms, this means that she has been headlining films for almost a quarter century now. While lead actors are allowed to age gracefully (fun fact: George Clooney is over six years older than his Ocean’s 11 wife), Hollywood is less kind to women.
At this stage of Roberts’ career, she needs to deliver the sort of blockbusters that Sandra Bullock has managed in recent years. Instead, Roberts hasn’t anchored a $100 million movie since Erin Brockovich in 2000. She has appeared in three movies that earned over $100 million (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and Valentine’s Day), but she was the appetizer in those films rather than the entrée. Roberts’ last five starring roles are Closer ($34.0 million), Charlie Wilson’s War ($66.7 million), Duplicity ($40.6 million), Eat Pray Love ($80.6 million) and Larry Crowne ($35.6 million). Yes, Julia Roberts is in an extended box office slump.
Mirror Mirror is the project she hopes will change that. The good news is that this is one of the most commercial movies she has done since Ocean’s Eleven. Shrek demonstrated how much people love fractured fairy tales and the re-imagining of classic myths is all the rage at the moment. In fact, Once Upon a Time, an ABC television show with a similar theme, garners approximately 11.7 million viewers each week. If Mirror Mirror enticed half of them into theaters on opening weekend, it would be a blockbuster debut.
This brings us to the bad news. The trailers for Mirror Mirror are among the worst in recent cinema. If you’ve seen them, you know the deal. This Relativity Media release wants so badly to be a Disney title that it comes across as self-parody. We all know and love the story of Snow White, one of the true classics. This is what makes the tone deaf nature of the advertising so shocking. After all, we cannot blame the cast. Sean Bean, Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane and Mare Winningham are all extremely talented thespians. There is only so much an actor can do with the source material, however, and the source material for Mirror Mirror looks awful. This movie should open fairly well, but it will quickly be relegated to an afterthought. It will also fall far short of this year’s other gothic retelling of the same fairy tale: Snow White and the Huntsman. (David Mumpower/BOP)
Vital statistics for Mirror Mirror |
| Main Cast |
Julia Roberts, Lily Collins |
| Supporting Cast |
Armie Hammer, Nathan Lane, Robert Emms, Mare Winningham, Michael Lerner, Mark Povinelli, Jordan Prentice, Danny Woodburn, Sebastian Saraceno, Ronald Lee Clark, Martin Klebba, Joey Gnoffo, Sean Bean |
| Director |
Tarsem Singh |
| Screenwriter |
Melissa Wallack, Jason Keller |
| Distributor |
Relativity Media |
| Trailer |
http://mirrormirrorfilm.com/#/home
|
| Official Site |
http://mirrormirrorfilm.com/#/home |
| Rating |
PG |
| Running Time |
106 minutes |
|
Talent in red has entry in The Big Picture |
|
|
|
|
|
