In both flicks the titular heroine has to rescue her kingdom from the clutches of her evil stepmother (one's definitely more evil than the other, but more on that in a minute). In Mirror, Mirror it's Lily Collins, while Kristen Stewart is Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman . To be quite honest, Lily Collins wins this one. Granted, Stewart did try, I just don't think she quite has the chops to carry this movie, there was something missing there, although to be fair there actually were a lot of things missing in this movie (it was all over the place). Collins lucked out here, Mirror, Mirror is a charming family-type fairy tale, and it didn't try to be anything more than that. It let her go from naive shut-in to kinda kick-ass princess. And she didn't have to put on chain mail to prove that point.
What's the Snow White story without the Evil Stepmother? Nothing! Julia Roberts in Mirror, Mirror really had no chance to win this one out against Charlize Theron's Ravenna in Huntsman. While Roberts' Evil Queen is a terrible person who taxes her kingdom into poverty, verbally and emotionally abuses her stepdaughter and turns poor Nathan Lane into a cockroach, she's just not that evil. She's past her prime and refuses to admit it, like the ladies on all those Housewives of... (or at least I that's an apt analogy, I've never watched any of those shows) Theron's Ravenna on the other hand has that whole 'terrible beauty' thing going on and makes no qualms about her outright evilness. I mean she literally sucks the youth from the girls in the kingdom. Her castle is all obsidian and spiky, she also wears a spiky crown and necklaces made of crow skulls, clear signs of evil folks. You know, I wonder if they had dressed Julia Roberts in spikes and black and stuff instead of peacock outfits...nope, not even then. Both actresses were over the top in their performances, it worked for Theron, not so much for Roberts.
Next up are the dwarves. Something extremely interesting that I noticed between the two flicks is that in Mirror, Mirror they cast little actors to play the dwarves. The characters then wore this crazy springy stilt things to be bandits in the woods, aaaand make themselves taller. In Huntsman they cast regular sized actors as the dwarves and then used technology to shrink them down. It was just one of those 'huh' moments for me. To each their own I guess. Anyways, the dwarves in Mirror, Mirror are more classic Snow White dwarves, they take Snow White in, let her stay etc. Then they teach her to fight and steal (they're bandits, it's what they know) and all that jazz. In Huntsman the dwarves lead Snow White and the Huntsman into a magical forest where she meets a stag, for some reason (seriously, this movie was all over the place).
Let me just say this, I'm a Chris Hemsworth fan. He's Australian, he's handsome aaaaand he's Thor. But in Snow White and The Huntsman, meh. He's supposed to kill her, he ends up falling for her, awfully convenient considering at the beginning his find is full of his dear dead wife. I don't know, I guess it just speaks to the general plot disconnect in the movie. Armie Hammer in Mirror, Mirror on the other hand. Wow. You may know him as the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, but did you know this dude is hilarious? He stole the whole movie for me.
These days every movie with any hint of romance requires a triangular plot apparently. Mirror, Mirror has one that I've seen before in Snow White: Snow, The Prince and the Queen. Here Snow and the Prince fall for each other, but the Queen wants to prove her youthfulness and maybe get some cash from a rich kingdom and tricks the Prince into falling for her, then everything works out in the end, like a fairy tale should. In Snow White and the Huntsman the triangle seemed awfully contrived. Snow and her childhood friend William have held candles for each other, even though they've been separated by time and distance. Then the Huntsman spends some time with Snow and falls for her, of course.
Soooo, by now I've made it fairly clear that I preferred Mirror, Mirror far above Snow White and the Huntsman. It's not just that I preferred all elements, save Charlize Theron's Queen, it's also that Huntsman was trying far to hard to be a movie that it really wasn't. You could practically hear some scenes scream 'LOOK HOW EPIC I AM!' There were even some blatant LOTR (sorry, that's Lord of the Rings for the non-nerds reading this) ripoffs where Snow, the Huntsman, William and the dwarves are walking over Middle Earth-like hills and dales. I couldn't help but shake my head. Perhaps if they had focussed the story a tad instead of trying to be something else it would have worked better. Mirror, Mirror certainly isn't perfect, but I found it a more enjoyable film. It knew it was funny take on a fairy tale and went with that, and pulled it off pretty well.
