RavenGlamDVDCollector
I absolutely adored Kristin Kreuk in her story arc on CHUCK, and though I never watch actual television, sneaked regular peeks away from DVD on the channel that was airing SMALLVILLE. That led to BEAUTY & THE BEAST, which I enthused about at the beginning, but... okay, that's another story. But as the magic fizzled out of BEAUTY & THE BEAST, I longed for Kristin back in her heyday, so I did some research, Wikipedia, IMDb, and found SNOW WHITE, a Canadian TV movie, so, some trepidation there, and I couldn't find a trailer. But I took the gamble on Kristin, she had to have been a pretty kid, glam-wise the movie was sure not to disappoint.Turns out I was quite right. Kristin, with her luminous eyes, porcelain-white skin, raven-black hair offsetting those gold star jewelry, makes a wonderful Snow White, certainly she is an excellent choice. On Wikipedia, described as 'doe-eyed' yeah, exactly! Notice that she also got criticized, dismissed as 'bland' to which I feel obliged to point out that the script follows the current trend of highlighting the Evil Stepmother, whether she be Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, Sigourney Weaver, or in this case, Miranda Richardson. So don't blame little Kristin, who, anyway, was a kid back then. Yes, her part should have been more active, but then again, as for the one of the multitude of SNOW WHITEs that I also saw, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, which deteriorated into a militant Joan of Arc display that completely overthrew the original fairy-tale, surely I don't want anything like that, thank you very much, but no thank you. You have to be a kid for this, so be warned, people. But toddlers might be too frightened to go to bed alone after seeing the Satanic messenger I have since learned is called The Green-Eyed One. Yet older children won't bother with this. Moms watching it with their kids might like it, though, it is truly charming, holes and all. Me myself I collect stuff like this, early appearances of stars, so okay! but I do groan every time there's a gooey-sugary dwarf face on the screen, Vincent Schiavelli excluded. A whole lot of work went into this. Magical bedazzling color, a lot of charming animals, all in all, for a TV-movie with a limited budget, these guys elevated themselves onto a next plane, so I have to let them have it: You came close, yet you went and screwed it up in many ways. The whole thing is quite uneven, we have kind of a new take on the original, yet we go through a bit of a bumpy ride along the way, you kinda feel like a fool for watching at times, then it rights itself again, then the cart tips over again...Miranda generally gets rave reviews, but I think she's kinda corny, just a big gutsy performance, but totally unpolished, just, like, here I am, I give a whole lot to the part, I'm really at it, film me, there it is, you got it. But the real (and major) surprise is Vera Farmiga, an unexpected appearance, I'm not going to say too much, 'cause I don't wanna carry Spoiler Alert labels, but this very pretty young lady, wow, that was some hectic performance, and she goes around looking like Sarah Jessica Parker but is almost scary!A drinking game for toddlers: (mugs of cocoa) Drink one every time there's a fade-out. Gee, the director must have been impressed with his new camera's fade-out functions. Action, fade- out, something happens, fade-out, another thing, fade-out, revelation, fade-out. Poor little toddlers will be so fulla sweetness in next to no time they'd fall into bed without a nighty night. I repeat, for a Canadian TV movie, lots more than you'd expect. I can see why it was released on DVD, it's got a lot of potential, even though it ultimately fell short of its own potential.Yet I'm going to feel like a louse if I give it only a 6. Ah, let's just call my 7 actually a 7 Minus, OK?
Floydoid
This is a pretty good re-telling of the Brothers Grimm story, indeed one I'm sure they would have been pleased with, whereas they would hardly have recognised the Disney version which was made purely to entertain young children. Here we have a movie the whole family can watch and enjoy on many levels.It was shot in some stunning locations, and the photography is superb. The special effects, in particular the use of the magic mirror(s), are also top notch. There are excellent performances by Miranda Richardson as the menacing, calculating, and very beautiful step-mother, and Vera Farmiga as Snow White's birth mother, although we don't see nearly enough of the latter. The oddball assortment of 'dwarfs' provide much of the comic action with their hilarious antics and valiant efforts to save the day.The big let down for me was the weak and distant performances by Kristin Kreuk in the title role, and Tom Irwin as her father.All in all very enjoyable, well worth looking out for. I rate it 8/10.
aimless-46
SPOILERS: This is not nearly as bad as it sounds. When you figure that Disney's Snow White is one of the top 50 U.S. films of all time (and the best thing Disney has ever done), you can understand why Hallmark and writer/director Caroline Thompson (who did such a good job on Black Beauty and Edward Scissorhands) would not want to do that version of the fairy tale. And unlike Alice in Wonderland, Snow White is not sacred material; not only has it changed drastically over the past 180+ years, but versions of the basic storyline are present in the folklore of many different countries and languages. The Hallmark version is much closer to the original (and darker) Brothers Grimm story. So the best way to watch this is to put aside any preconceived notions and view it with an open mind.One thing it has going for it is that the production designer did the usual Hallmark fairy tale magic with the look of the thing. Very nice.Casting was a little weak. Kristan Kreuk's performance as the title character is feeble; the director should have been able to get a whole lot more from her, but Miranda Richardson as the Evil Queen was wonderful. Fortunately the story is centered around the Queen, and Richardson is able carry the whole film. I don't know if this was by design or was done in post, they may have trimmed a lot of Kreuk's stuff when they realized it was so awful. But at least they worked hard with the lighting and the digital color correction to lighten Kreuk's complexion-she is still not physically believable as Snow White (not even close to lips as red as blood and skin white as the snow) but the disparity is not as bad as expected. And Kruck is such a sterile non-sensuous beauty that she fits the antiseptic way in which the director apparently wanted to under-portray the character.Vincent Schiavelli who stole the show in "Ghost" also steals all the seven dwarf scenes.Vera Farmiga does a great job as Snow White's mother, especially when she plays the Queen impersonating the mother. In fact, the best scene of the film is when she is trying to convince Snow White to eat the apple-some really great shot framing and editing. Interestingly, in the original story it was the mother (not a step-mother) who was trying to kill Snow White,The ending is a bit anti-climatic as it almost instantly goes from everything being totally bleak to everything being right with the kingdom. And this happens not because of any action from the heroes or in any sort of suspenseful way, the Queen just undoes herself by reaching too far. While this supports the 'its what's inside each of us that's important' theme, it cheats the viewer out of an interestingly evolving resolution.If you ignore Kreuk (who became a decent actress-or at least much better than anyone could have guessed from this performance) and prepare yourself for a rather 'nothing' ending, you should enjoy this tale.
