“Surprisingly Excellent”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Mirror Mirror is the most recent Hollywood version of the fairy tale about Snow White, another version is even being released later this year, but you just might be surprised at how well you enjoy this one with Julia Roberts starring as the evil Queen.

In fact, at the beginning in a voice-over by the Queen as she narrates the background of the story about Snow White, the Queen says, “And this is my story, not hers.”

Snow White is played by Lily Collins, the daughter of seven-time Grammy winner Phil Collins, and we are told that she was left under the care of the Queen when the King disappeared mysteriously, and under the control of the Queen, the once prosperous kingdom has now become close to destitute.

The people in the kingdom don’t sing and dance like they used to, and shouldn’t it be called the queendom now, anyway?

At any rate, Snow White has been confined to the castle by the Queen all these years, and when she is 18, Snow White sneaks out of the castle to see for herself what has been happening in the queendom.

While she is in the forest, Snow White rescues the charming Prince Alcott, played by Armie Hammer, who, along with his companion, has been robbed by a gang of seven thieves.

Well, you can pretty much guess the rest, can’t you, but I’ll bet you can’t guess the names of the seven dwarfs, who here have been named Napoleon, Half Pint, Grub, Grimm, Wolf, Butcher, and Chuckles, and who live in the woods because the Queen had all the “ugly people” banished from the village.

Another change to this version of the classic story is the addition of Brighton, who is unofficially called the Queen’s Executive Bootlicker and who is played by Nathan Lane.

Also, the order of some of the events that we are familiar with from previous versions of the story have been turned around, but again, because Julia Roberts is the bigger star and because she said so at the beginning, this is a story more about the Queen than a story about Snow White.

However, when it reaches the part in the story where “they all lived happily ever after,” both the Queen and the audience might be surprised.

Mirror Mirror is surprisingly excellent.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”