Grimm's Snow White

Poor "Snow"; Whether getting ribbed because of infamous appearances on the Oscars or spoofed on "The Carol Burnett Show" (hilariously!), she has not had an easy time of it. Even Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" failed to include her save a mention by one of the princes after marrying her fairy tale rival (Cinderella). The 1937 Disney film will always be considered a classic, and a 1997 cable movie, "Snow White: A Tale of Terror", told the Grimm story the way it should be told when taking it seriously. So in 2012, three hideous movies come along about "Snow", and this one, lavishly boxed for video, is the worst. (To be honest, as of this date, I have not seen the other two, but they can't be any worse than this.) Some silly looking rubber monsters are thrown in to add gruesome horror to the mêlée. They appear to eat various peasants sent by the Queen into the woods to destroy them, but for some reason, the monster doesn't swallow them. Of all of the characters, the monster probably had the best taste of any of them. Snow White barely says a word; The Queen is given some hideously bland costumes and crowns; and the dwarfs are actually simple country folk of regular human size who adopt "Snow" when the Queen's henchman fails to kill her. Add on a "Prince Charming" who appears to have divided loyalties and isn't exactly charming. Try not to laugh at the Queen's make-up when she transforms into the old hag, minus the apple. Other than that, I thought that the Queen was appropriately evil, although there is never any reason explained for her hatred towards Snow White or her vanity in general. Sigourney Weaver did it best in the 1997 cable version I mention above, with motivations as clear as the Gothic mirror she gazes into. A footnote about the DVD: it contains trailers for some of the most vile, evil looking series of films I've ever seen produced for viewing. There is no purpose to the meanness of either the trailers or the film other than to promote a seemingly Satanistic view of humanity.

i liked it... thought there was some pretty good acting; despite the fact that it says it's going in a non-traditional way with the elves and the weird dragons, it kinda didn't really stray from a typical plot line for snow white... loved how the fights scenes were done and i'm sorry but i laughed at how bad the special effects were whenever somethings head got chopped off... must have saved money on fake blood since i believe only one scene had any... the plastic elf ears were kind of cute and you gotta love the queen being a man user to get what she wants... i honestly have to say that i think they could have gone more towards a snow white confronting destiny and had the epic snow vs evil queen in front of the star flames and the ending needed to be cleaned up with a theme of peace and complete togetherness... my favorite character had to be Orlando the grumpy (yet super sexy) elf he just had more depth and transformation of character from being local bad boy/protector saying dude just let her die she's human, to a more compassionate, oh snow i see how hard it is to see your true loves forced wedding- understanding look in his eyes his character really pulled through and i love the depth the actor presented, the prince however i'm not impressed with his character which could have been the actor could have been how he was written... who knows

As far as bad movies go, this one takes the cake. I'm always a sucker for fairy tales, so I thought "LET'S GIVE IT A TRY!" It's like they took the better parts of all the big epic movies and threw them in a blender and hit puree. First you have a girl who looks and dresses like Alice, and you have OBVIOUS knockoffs of LOTR and Game of Thrones with the elves (OMG they actually named one "Orlando?" - BLOOM by any chance?); and Prince Alexander has the RPat look going on. He does everything but sparkle. Our family had more fun MST3K-ing it than watching it seriously. As my husband eloquently put it, "Someone raided a RenFaire for these costumes.

Well where do I begin. Snow White retold with the inclusion of dragons and elves? An unusual pretence for a movie but one that could have been interesting. Right? Wrong! Everything about this film was just terrible. From the opening scene you just know what is about to follow. At least they gave us the courtesy of turning the movie off at the start instead of wasting an hour and a half watching it, which I should have done. But I watched it through. The casting, the acting, the directorship, the editing, the CGI, were all atrocious. I found myself laughing out loud several times at just how lame it all was. None of the "poignant" scenes stir any emotions, except for hilarity at the lameness. The plot is disjointed, the crew minimal (there must be less than a hundred cast in the entire movie, and that is including both armies!! The only decent thing was the musical score, which may have made it OK to watch if you are blind and you could remove the script!! Get the sound track but for God's sake don't watch this movie. You have been warned. Other than all that, of course, it's alright :)

This was pretty good. I think the scenery was absolutely lush and beautiful and made half the movie. The action didn't flag, and the characters were mostly stock but well defined and played. I know this sounds like faint praise. But, for a production produced by The Asylum, this is very very good. I've seen a few of their 'mock' busters. This was much better than their usual, cheap fare. If you like fantasy, with a beautiful central/southern European flavor, then watch this. The stepmother was well played, as were many of the elf characters. The only miscasting was Snow White. She was the wrong one for that role. But fortunately Snow White had a small part, for all that the title promises. In this age of high end special effects, they managed pretty well using basic computer graphics tools. Pretty soon, special effects in films of any budget will be good.

Let's have a look back on the past Asylum films that they invented. 666: The Beast, 666: The Child and also, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. THOSE films were terrible with a capital T. I saw another film produced by The Asylum not long ago with Ving Rhames 'Zombie Apocalypse' compare all those films to their latest ones now, they're improving just very slowly. They're not cheesy as much any more, their films are not in low quality, also they're hiring actors who are known to the community. I'm waiting for some of their new films that are going to be released soon Golden Winter, Super Cyclone, Nazis at the centre of the earth and also Alien Origin. Sure, Grimm's snow white wasn't as exciting but it's definitely an improvement from The Asylum. -Trent Browning

RELEASED TO VIDEO IN 2012 and directed by Rachel Goldenberg, "Grimm's Snow White" is a loose adaption of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about an evil queen (Jane March) who takes over her husband's kingdom after his dubious death. Upon discovering that her beautiful stepdaughter, Snow (Eliza Bennett), is a rival for the attentions of a valiant prince (Jamie Thomas King) she tries to kill her, but Snow escapes into the enchanted forest where she finds reluctant sanctuary with some elves (Sebastian Wimmer, Alan Burgon, Frauke Steiner, etc.). Meanwhile war is brewing. Otto Jankovich is on hand as the prince's adviser. The Asylum (film company) is known for making low-budget knockoffs of major films (always for less than $1 million) and thus "Grimm's Snow White" came out eleven weeks before "Snow White and the Huntsman" to steal some of its thunder. While it lacks that film's production polish, I found the story at least as engaging and Eliza Bennett is just all-around more fitting in the title role than the nigh impassive Kristen Stewart. Sure, she looks like Alice in Wonderland, but who cares? As for Snow's blonde hair, there have been renditions of the story where she has blonde ("golden") hair. There's also at least one other film version where she's a blonde. Jamie Thomas King is also preferable to the hulking Chris Hemsworth simply because he's more of an 'every man' and is just plain more likable. Moreover, the locations and authentic castles are awesome, shot in the heart of Europe; and the emerald forests are to die for. Sure, the CGI dragons and canine beasts are hopelessly cartoony, but that's to be expected in a TV-budgeted flick. If you don't mind low-budgets and like fantasy adventures that feature all the elements noted in my title blurb, you'll find this movie entertaining. Remember: Imagination and legend are about good and evil and the power of selfless courage against impossible odds. There is nothing more heroic than man (male or female) against monster. This is what you get in "Grimm's Snow White." Yes, some Asylum movies suck (e.g. "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and "Mega Piranha"), but some don't (e.g. "The Land That Time Forgot" and "6 Guns"). "Grimm's Snow White" ranks with the latter. THE FILM RUNS 90 minutes and was shot in and around Vienna, Austria. WRITER: Naomi L. Selfman. GRADE: B/B- (6.5/10)

Amazing how often the same good idea occurs to more than one movie production company at the same time, isn't it? After two big budget variations on Snow White, here comes the cheap and cheerful TV movie version from the SyFy channel. This usually does not bode well. Actually, this could be worse. The scenery is good, the cast is attractive, and the acting is OK. Conversely, the script isn't wonderful, the direction is poor, and the CGI critters are among the SyFy channel's worst. The wonderful Eliza Bennett is Snow White. I had hoped that, after her early promise, she would have found better vehicles than this.

Poor acting, poorly scripted, badly drawn CGI graphics, yellow stick-on ears that don't fit the wearer, a lack of depth in the characters, an incredibly small elf army representing the whole of the elf population, CGI dogs that can't jump gaps and just fall into them, guards who don't really pay very much attention to whether their queen is under threat or not, a serious lack of dwarfs, an ugly hag who's supposed to be the 2nd most beautiful woman in the kingdom and wears a dress that's massively too big for her and is lacking in any jewellery, and snow white has blonde hair and pink lips. Need I say any more? While the story has an interesting take on the tale we're all too familiar with it's lacking proper care and whoever did the makeup needs shooting. Couldn't even be bothered to paint the ears to make them the same skin colour as the wearer or attempt at hiding the seams so it looks like they're wearing fake ears.

Grimm's Snow White (2012) ** (out of 4) With both MIRROR MIRROR and SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN hitting theaters in 2012, it was only a matter of time before The Asylum struck with their mockbuster. The story is pretty much the same that we're used to as the Queen (Jane March) wants Snow White (Eliza Bennett) out of the Kingdom but when the jobs not done she enters the Enchanted Forrest where the Prince (Jamie Thomas King) comes to her rescue. Being The Asylum, the wood creatures are actually dragons, which is the biggest change in the story. GRIMM'S SNOW WHITE isn't going to make you forget the Disney classic (or even the good silent version) but it's actually not too bad considering who made it. It seems that everyone on board was actually trying to make a good film and not just a cheap rip-off of something else out there, which is often the case for The Asylum. On a technical level the film is rather impressive as it has a professional look and it's put together rather nicely. I'd add that the editing was also good as was the cinematography. Another thing the film had going for it were the performances, which were actually good and I'd say they were much better than what we got in the bigger budgeted MIRROR MIRROR. Bennett made for a good Snow White as she delivered a certain charm and innocence that really came across. Another major plus was March as the Queen. After the controversial start to her career with films like THE LOVER and COLOR OF NIGHT, I was really interested in seeing her today and she was still a beauty and managed to be quite good in the role. I thought she was very good at playing the evil and she didn't have to be cute with it or go over-the-top. Of course, the low budget also means you get some pretty poor CGI effects with the dragons but to be fair the quality is actually a bit better than you'd typically get. Another problem is that after a while the film just loses all of its gas and momentum and quickly dies out. Obviously this film isn't going to be for everyone but it's certainly not as bad as it could have been.