Film review - Mirror Mirror

The trailer for this film looked beyond awful – one of the dwarves actually said “Snow who? Snow way!” I was willing to give it a chance, however, as The Fall’s trailer was terrible but the film was great. Apparently Tarsem Singh’s films don’t trailerise well.  In actuality this reimagining of the Snow White tale is stunningly beautiful, frothy and fun.

Snow White (Lily Collins) has been held prisoner in her own castle by her wicked stepmother (Julia Roberts). When she falls in love with a handsome prince (Armie Hammer) that the queen wants for herself, she is banished into the woods. There she meets seven bandits of restricted growth who show her how to fight for her kingdom.

The storyline is quite simple and although it deviates from the original (Snow White sword fighting etc.), it doesn’t feel revolutionary in any way. What it is, however, is enjoyable, with good performances and a script full of nice touches. Julia Roberts is deliciously over the top, Lily Collins is cute as a button and Armie Hammer is suitably pompous and dimwitted. Nathan Lane also does a good little turn as the evil queen’s henchman, and it is nice to see Danny Woodburn (Mickey from Seinfeld) as one of the dwarves.

What really makes the film special, though, is the art direction and the costume design in particular. This was designer Eiko Ishioka’s final film, and she managed to surpass her work on Singh’s The Fall. All the clothes are exquisite – the massive dresses are sumptuous and detailed, in rich colours.

Mirror Mirror won’t change your life, but for all little (and big) princesses out there it is a delightful confection.

Film review - The Avengers

It has taken five films to get to this point – the backstories of the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America have all been fleshed out separately and now they are to be brought together to form a superhero gang. Somehow it still takes this film a while to get going, but when it does it really soars.

Loki, Thor’s adopted brother, comes to Earth and steals the Tesseract (a magical power cube) from S.H.I.E.L.D (a powerful espionage agency). S.H.I.E.L.D’s leader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) gathers together some of the world’s greatest heroes to retrieve the Tesseract and defeat Loki’s army of aliens.

The lengthy set up before the big battle involves a lot of waiting around on S.H.I.E.L.D’s hellicarrier, but luckily the audience is waiting around with some great characters and a script by Joss Whedon. The comic tone set by the Iron Man films continues here, and Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark is still a hoot. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is hilariously serious, and Captain America (Chris Evans) is also nicely confused by 21st century Earth. Even Scarlett Johansson isn’t awful as the Black Widow, doing a lot of nice double crossing.

The final battle is spectacular, if a little long. A huge amount of destruction takes place as the aliens attack Manhatten (which will always be less fun to watch than it was pre-2001), with the Hulk, Iron Man and Thor doing the heavy lifting, while the Black Widow and Hawkeye basically lend moral support.

Out of all the preceding films, Thor was the most silly, and The Avengers unfortunately uses that film’s main villain. Not that Tom Hiddleston isn’t good as Loki, or that the other possible villains are realistic and sensible, it’s just that after the first Avengers film we’ve already had a Norse god leading an army of angry aliens. Where do you go from here?

All in all the first Avengers film is certainly worth the price of admission – great one-liners married with decent action and excellent performances. Frivilous fun for superhero fans.

Film review - The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists

Aardman Animation’s first 3D film is a strange tale of plundering on the high seas. Although fun, it is not quite rollicking enough to be a classic.

Set in an imaginary version of 1837 where piracy is still a problem and every famous person from the 19th century is alive and in their prime, this is a surreal take on the popular pirate story. The film follows the Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) and his band of “say what you see”-named pirates (the Pirate with Gout, the Albino Pirate, and – my favourite – the Suprisingly Curvaceous Pirate) as he tries to win the Pirate of the Year competition. On the way they meet a young Charles Darwin and have a run in with Queen Victoria, who really hates pirates.

Aardman films always have a lot of charm, and again The Pirates! has loads of little details – both in the backgrounds and the script – that firmly show its British roots and elevate it above the rest. The trouble is that the story and the characters just aren’t that memorable.