Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001 TV Movie) User Reviews

Could have been better

[charmedchick · 5/10 · 18 March 2002]

This movie could have been so much better. The sets were beautiful and the special effects were very good. Many of the cast were also good. However, it's very hard to over look the flaws in the script. There were so many parts that weren't explained so you weren't sure why the part was in the movie. Some of the lines were also poorly written. The movie wasn't horrible, but overall it really could have been so much better. I gave it 5 out of 10 stars.

A letdown considering the source and the talent - pretty Grimm.

[Victor Field · 5/10 · 26 December 2002]

Hallmark Entertainment's seemingly remorseless quest to film every fairy tale ever made meant that they'd eventually get to the Grimm brothers' tale of Snow White and the seven dwarves - except that as told by adapters Caroline Thompson and Julie Hickson only six of them are dwarves, as part of their development of the classic tale. Unfortunately, you know what they say about the road to hell and good intentions.

"Snow White" also works in a few elements of "The Snow Queen" - the shards of Queen Elspeth's mirror flying into people's eyes and causing them to not see her evil for what it is - but also adds some interesting twists to the yarn; her psychosis is for once given some basis (the Queen's insecurity over the hideousness that is her true self is the ultimate cause for her going over the edge when her mirror informs that it is her stepdaughter, not she herself, who is the fairest of them all), and the septet - the days of the week in... um... corporeal form - are also a bit more defined than the norm. Lovely British Columbia scenery and a fine score by Michael Convertino also help; the problem with "Snow White" is, however, Snow White herself.

Other characters here get fleshed out, but Snow White remains a bit too passive for comfort - it's less the fault of Kristin Kreuk's performance than the basic script and character, but there's only so much you can do with a symbol instead of a person. Miranda Richardson has much more scope as the wicked stepmother, and is clearly enjoying herself (although you do wonder why nobody notices the woman is obviously a few sandwiches short of a picnic), but a few less wisecracks would have helped - "It looks like I finally left you breathless!" she cackles post-poisoned apple delivery.

A lot more wonder would also have helped; "Snow White" is sadly short of magic, and doesn't really take as much advantage of its story as it could (except for the sadly truncated attack of the garden gnomes... not as daft as it sounds, trust me). This is particularly sad considering Caroline Thompson did such a good job on "Black Beauty" and as the scripter of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Edward Scissorhands." It is, however, always good to watch Vincent Schiavelli and Michael J. Anderson (the dwarf from "Twin Peaks") - but fairytale completists, Richardson fans and guys in love with the brunette from "Smallville" will get more from this ultimately dull tale than I did.

Surprisingly Good

[stuntedvampire · 7/10 · 5 January 2006]

To be be honest, I was expecting this movie to be terrible. I'm a big fan of Warwick Davis and bought the movie just because he was in it. What I expected to be a cheesy, poorly acted retelling of a tired fairytale, turned out to be an only occasionally cheesy movie with a few casting mistakes that was reasonably entertaining. The queen's back story and the intertwining of other fairy tales (pinches of Snow White & Rose Red and Snow Queen)make an otherwise predictable story interesting. Miranda Richardson is amazing as the queen to the point where she makes up for the fact that Snow White is just reciting lines and her father is overly dramatic and completely unbelievable. As for the seven, I was disappointed with the flatness of some characters. Script-wise the leader is really the only one with depth, so I can see where some of the actors struggled to show humanity, but when half of them act like they have feelings, and the other half act like they stepped out of a Disney *shudders* movie, is make all seven seem fake. It's still fun to watch, though, if for no other reason than to see Warwick Davis threaten to beat up some one twice his size.

Interesting take on a classic.

[TxMike · 19 April 2003]

First I want to say with a certain amount of authority (50 years of movie-watching) that the total of about 37% "1" and "10" votes for this movie are equally bogus. It is neither. The median rating of near "6" or "7" is about right.

I like Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang of Smallville TV series), she is so cute, she is a perfect pick for Snow White. I expected to see essentially the same story as told in the classic Disney animated feature, but it is quite different. On the DVD extra the writer/director explains that this version is more in line with the original Snow White tales that were handed down from olden times.

It is quite well done in places, and the use of "days of the week" to name the 7 dwarves, the use of rainbow colors to identify them, and the inclusion of one 6 ft, 4 inch "dwarf" help make it interesting. Maranda Richardson, known best for her work as Ms Tweedy in CHICKEN RUN, is really good as the stepmom who wants Snow White dead.

In summary, while not a great film, interesting enough to spend time watching.

A vastly different interpretation of the Brothers Grimm Classic

[bjmatchett · 7/10 · 9 March 2003]

I just finished watching this movie on video and had to comment on it. This version is so vastly different than the classic Disney version that I found myself wondering if it was indeed the same story. There are some clever and original twists in this version such as the wicked witch using her hand-held mirror as a deadly weapon. Miranda Richardson is just wonderful as the wicked stepmother and was a terrific choice, as she is very beautiful, but yet menacing enough to be scary. Kristin Kreuk (of WB's "Smallville) was a perfect choice for the title character and looks exactly as one would expect Snow White to look. Tom Irwin is also perfectly cast as her father although his talents as an actor are not really taken full advantage of in this limited role. There are no dwarves named Dopey or Sleepy, etc. in this version of the Brother's Grimm tale, but the characters that are used to portray the equivalent parts are very well acted by Warwick Davis, Michael J. Anderson, and the other actors. Overall I think this is a very different but interesting interpretation of the classic tale although somewhat more dark and moody than I expected.

Not your traditional Snow White (spoilers)

[NB2000 · 7/10 · 24 December 2002]

Yet it has something that made it very interesting. Miranda Richardson is brilliant as the Queen. She brings a rather comical touch to some scenes such as when she's asking the mirror who's the fairest and she pulls a face to see what happens. She seems to be enjoying herself immensely.

Kristin Kreuk is okay but not very original as Snow White. She seems to be just like Snow White is in every other film. Her father did annoy me slightly at the beginning. He just didn't let go of the baby and when he fell over holding her it just got on my nerves as it probably wasn't a very good idea. The Dwarves were rather comical but I was curios to see that one of them was human size. Heck he was bigger than Snow White. The Prince didn't really get a chance to do anything as he was a Bear for most of the time, and then he was a little bear in a Snow Globe. One Character I would liked to have seen more of was Hector. I know he wasn't really important but he was really good. It was an interesting twist that the person sent to kill Snow White wasn't some guy that the queen brought in but one of the servants who was under a spell at the time. Shame he got killed really. Some parts of the story were confusing and it felt like there was still a long way to go when there was only half an hour left. The story seemed to right itself very quickly towards itself. Overall it was very good but needed your full attention to keep on top of it all.

The movie bit the apple

[BibChr · 3/10 · 3 September 2006]

Snow White has a few nice turns of dialogue, a plot that feels heavily padded, a few competent actors (Miranda Richardson, Clancy Brown, Warwick Davis), one or two decent effects -- and almost no life at all.

Maybe the movie should have been named "Sleeping Beauty," as it features some nice sets and locations, but they are inhabited by actors who intone their lines almost expressionlessly in an almost stationary, dreamy, sleepwalking fashion.

The only actor who seems to be having any fun is Vera Farmiga, and she dies in the first five minutes. She reappears playing Miranda Richardson being her -- again, for about five minutes. She can't save the movie.

The dwarfs are lifeless and uncompelling. They haven't much to say or do except look uncomfortable, say silly (not funny-silly, but dumb-silly) things, and occasionally participate in a very awkwardly-done special effect (Director: "Everybody crouch a little, then stand up and lean left together; they'll turn you into a rainbow later. It'll look cool, I promise!").

My advice: unless saying "Huh? Okay, whatever" for ninety minutes is your idea of fun, don't bother.

doe-eyed Kristin Kreuk an excellent choice, but...

[RavenGlamDVDCollector · 7/10 · 15 August 2016]

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?

Screenwriter must have been on LSD

[kirbyskay2012 · 3/10 · 2 October 2013]

I bought this from the $5 bin at Walmart, and watched it at home, all the time expecting something much closer to the fairy tale.

The production values were good, including the sets, costumes, and props. The seven dwarf characters ranged from mundane to absolutely annoying. The bear seemed superfluous entirely. Snow White's father was a complete wimp from beginning to end, although looked the part of a fairy tale king. Queen Elspeth was one dimensional, making a convincing totally self-absorbed beauty, but seemed to soft pedal her evil.

The story itself was okay, and serves as a stand-alone movie as long as the viewer has never once read the original fairy tale or seen any other version of it (even the famous Disney animated masterpiece), but somehow just doesn't fit together in this production. There is no bad language or nudity, so it's OK for kids, but would probably be a confusing thing for them to watch, at best. 3 out of 10 only.

Odd Take on a Classic Tale

[deenariley-49870 · 7/10 · 19 October 2021]

Obviously made on the cheap with a TV movie budget, this version of Snow White has a lot of big ideas, but it sometimes feels like it's trying to do too much at once and distance itself as far away from the original story as possible. In this version, the Evil Queen isn't simply a wicked, vain woman but some sort of ancient witch who's turned beautiful by her magical brother to fulfill a favor to Snow White's father. She ends up bewitching the father into falling in love with her by sticking a shard of mirror in his eye like in The Snow Queen.

Eventually, the story gets back to the basics of the Evil Queen trying to kill Snow White. There is the ghoulish touch of having the Queen transform herself into a vision of Snow White's dead birth mother to deliver the poisoned apple and some other touches like Snow White appearing from the mirror to torment the Queen are nice, but the story still seems like it's trying to do too much with too little time. Still worthy of a watch, though.

Hardly the fairest of them all.

[phillindholm · 3/10 · 9 August 2005]

"Snow White" is a classic story, one which is so perfect in its original form that there is really no need (or room) for improvement. "Snow White, The Fairest Of Them All" is a great example. The story has been needlessly rewritten as if the screenwriter didn't trust the power of the original. Kristin Kreuk as Snow White, looks the part, but doesn't act it. She is sullen and unappealing throughout. And what a waste of the great Miranda Richardson! As the wicked queen, she is as beautiful and compelling as ever, but this adaptation undercuts her fine performance with a terrible back story in which she is originally a hag who is turned into a beauty by her well-meaning spirit of a brother.The Seven "Dwarfs" are played so broadly that they are totally ineffectual. The rest of the film is chaotic and needlessly convoluted. I could go on, but, suffice it to say, that this is not your mother's, grandmother's, or anyone's "Snow White". It's true that the Disney film fell short of being a faithful version of the story, but it compensated with a great deal of charm, only one of the essential elements so obviously lacking here...

Kristin Kruek SHINES as "Snow White"

[oznickolaus · 8/10 · 17 March 2002]

It's not your traditional version of the Grimm's famous story, but this effort by Hallmark Entertainment (distributed by Disney) certainly has it's merits!

Caroline Thompson's script tells the traditional story of the princess with "skin as white as snow" and the jealous stepmother who wishes her stepdaughter dead. But Thompson decides to elaborate the story with several touches of her own. For instance, Snow White's father, John (played by Tom Irwin), releases a "jinn" or "genie" type creature (Clancy Brown) from a frozen prison in the ice. To show his thanks, the creature grants John three wishes: 1) milk for his infant daughter, 2) a kingdom, and 3) a queen. But the candidate chosen to sit at King John's side, is none other than the creature's hideous sister, Elsbeth (Miranda Richardson). As an "act of kindness" to his sister, he transforms her blemished skin to worldly beauty. But King John's heart still lies with his dead wife, Josephine (Vera Farmiga). So, Elspeth's first spell of manipulation is cast.

Another added plot twist borrows from another Grimm's story, "Snow White and Rose Red". Queen Elsbeth lets her raging hormones get the best of her when Prince Alfred (Tyron Leitso) spurns her lusty advances. For revenge, Elsbeth turns the prince into a bear, who then seeks out Snow White to help break the spell.

In a psychological twist, Esbeth disguises herself as Josephine, Snow White's mother, when she delivers the poisoned apple. Quite clever.

Hallmark Entertainment regular Miranda Richardson is perfectly cast as the woman who's sole existence rides on being "fairest in the land". In her usual brilliant way, Richardson's performance is deranged yet humorous all at once.

Kristin Kreuk (WB's "Smallville") as "Snow White" gives a deeper performance than one would expect. Rather than turning the princess into a sugary sweet victim, Kreuk brings out the human qualities of a teenager who longs to be seen as more than the beauty she is. Because of Elsbeth's spell on him, her father ignores her. Her stepmother hates her. The visiting prince swoons over her. The poor girl simply wants to be loved and known for the person behind the beautiful face. Kreuk was the perfect choice.

The seven dwarfs are creatively reworked as the creatures that control the weather. They travel around the countryside as a rainbow, with each of them playing a different color. Named for the days of the week, each dwarf's personality comes from the old nursery rhyme' "Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace.....". Warwick Davis, of Ewok fame, plays "Saturday". Davis is no stranger the Snow White story, having performed in and directed many pantomime productions in his homeland of England. In another creative twist, Vincent Schiavelli plays "Wednesday"....the only "dwarf" over 4.5 feet tall! Michael J. Anderson (Twin Peaks) plays "Sunday" the kind-hearted sympathetic leader of the "magnificent seven".

As in anything she is in, Vera Farmiga is wonderful. She is under used sadly, as Josephine is buried for most of the film. Thankfully she is brought back for the famous apple sequence.

If you are expecting a live action version of the Disney 1937 classic, you will be greatly disappointed. The film rides on it's own merit and will hopefully become another family classic. Thanks Hallmark!

Barely adequate and disappointing version.

[Michco · 2/10 · 17 March 2002]

I am choosing my words very carefully so as to be fair but honest. I was very disappointed with this latest remake. I think a film like this could and should be as good for overall mood, feeling, and dramatic camera moves as 'Legend' with Tom Cruise. The very first thing the producers should have done was not go with Miranda Richardson! I suppose that with a better director her performances could have actually been menacing rather than whispering, which reminded me exactly of her performance in another TV movie 'Merlin' as Queen Mab! I would have rather gone with a complete unknown, like Kristen Kreuk, who did very well here. Some scenes reminded me of lower budget computer CDRom games like '7th Guest', etc. I might be wrong here, but I really think the director does not have enough passion and innate talented visual concept of what a movie like this should be about, which in my opinion is: dark, scary, real, fantastical. Where were the cool transitions from prince to bear, and bear back to prince, etc, and what about giving us some sense of time after stating 'sixteen years later', and the dwarves are acting like it's the same day shoot! Bottom line is it looked like a first time effort of a film student.

A nice, modern retelling

[gapeach17 · 3 May 2002]

This is probably very un-American of me to say, but I never liked Disney's "Snow White", mainly because Snow White herself is such a twittering bimbo! There, I said it. On with the review:

I was very surprised at how good this version of "Snow White" was. The genie was cool, if a little creepy, and the acting is great. The highlight has to be the dwarves. Their names are days of the week and they travel by rainbow. One of them is even a girl! Faces to look for in the dwarf cast: veteran fantasy film star Warwick Davis ("Willow", "The 10th Kingdom"), as Saturday, Michael J. Anderson ("Twin Peaks") as the sweet leader dwarf Sunday, and Vincent Schiavelli (Uncle Enyos on season 2 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") as the negative Wednesday. The latter is an odd choice: he's not a dwarf at all! Oh, well.

Sadly, the biggest drawback is none other than Snow White herself. Kristin Kreuk ("Smallville") is unforgivably bland as Snow White. She's a stunning beauty, but little else. To break it down, Snow White's gone from having no brain to having no personality.

Still, "Snow White: The Fairest of Them All", is a treat for Hallmark movie fans. Catch it when it comes on video.

Hardly a fairytale come true

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 15 July 2011]

That is not to say that Snow White is a complete mess, I did love the costume, photography, lighting and set design, the music has a mystical quality and there are two good performances from Vera Farmiga and Warwick Davis and a great one from Miranda Richardson. On the other hand, Kristen Kreuk is very dull and passive albeit beautiful as Snow White, likewise with Tom Irwin. The dwarfs apart from the one played by Davis are lifeless and devoid of personality, the script is stilted, the pace is sluggish and the story has the basic outline of the original story still intact but the telling of it is dull and uninteresting with some scenes going on for too long. In conclusion, not terrible but hardly a fairytale come true either. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Load of tripe

[Boristhemoggy · 3/10 · 16 April 2013]

Put succinctly this film starts out OK, then quickly descends into the most appalling acting and directing I've seen in a long time. The cut to the baby is so badly done it would not credit a first year video student. The story is odd, the special effects next to dire, the acting abysmal, photography average, lighting poor and sets/location poor.

There is only one saving grace to this movie and that is the welcome presence of the fantastic Vera Farmiga. Her skills transcend this movie so much that she ought to have embarrassed everyone in it. I grudgingly accept that Miranda Richardson wasn't dire, but neither was she good. Kristin Kreuk looks like some kind of manufactured doll, and in fact acts like one too.

If you love Vera Farmiga's skills watch this if nothing else than for her: she totally shines. As for the rest, it's an hour and a half of your life utterly and totally wasted.

I want my 93 minutes back.

[karlijnchardon · 2/10 · 10 April 2017]

Unfortunately not even Miranda Richardson couldn't save this film. She was great, and Kirstin Kreuk pretty as always. Michael J. Anderson was good too, but that's about it. Some of the acting looked like it came right out of a school play. Some of the costumes were great too, but other costumes were ridiculous. Whoever cam up with the idea of dressing the dwarfs in rainbow colours? And why did Wednesday's costume make him look like he pooped his pants? End conclusion: I want my 93 minutes back.

Surreal, over the top and very impressive.

[hand-eti · 10/10 · 22 October 2009]

I just got a copy of the DVD from a second hand store and watched it without ever having heard of it. It is brilliant! Of course it is not a 90 minute remake of the classic fairy tale. It is certainly not a children's movie either.

The makers of this movie just let their imagination run wild and every single move is surprising and any idea that was really too much was happily included in the movie. You'll be smiling from the beginning to the end.

And you'll get three fairy tales for the price of one - the main storyline of the Snow Queen (Andersen) and a theme from Snow White and Rose Red (Grimm) are included as well.

Not Nearly as Bad as it Sounds

[aimless-46 · 5/10 · 1 December 2004]

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.

nice

[Kirpianuscus · 3 September 2017]

the best thing - a version who escapes from the ordinary expectations. the special effects. and Miranda Richardson who has the perfect science to give to her role force and seduction. a real surprise - Kristin Kreuk as a real different Snow White. her performance is a real surprise because she gives new nuances to a role who seems be easy victim of clichés. a film who use in smart way the humor and the grace of story, the darkness and the seduction. and who reminds the original emotion when you discovers the fairy tale for the first time. this is all.

A disappointment overall

[cgazak · 5/10 · 21 June 2002]

My main disappointment in this film was the casting of Tom Irwin as the father. He was mediocre overall and truly awful in many spots. His amateur renderings of "conveying worry by pacing back and forth" and "waking up after a long imprisonment to smell the roses" made me cringe. I wish they had switched him with Jose Zúñiga in the role of Hector and let Zúñiga get a little more exposure. He's a talented actor that we don't see a lot of, and Irwin certainly didn't deserve having one of the largest parts in the movie.

Even my 10 year old niece thought he was a little too precious in the father role.

Certainly not the fairest of them all...

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 1/10 · 26 November 2005]

I won't claim that I've seen particularly many adventure/fantasy flicks, or many fairy tale films, or even more than three versions of this story(the other two being Snow White in the Dark Forest and the Disney cartoon version). But I will say that this is pretty thin. The plot is changed around a bit, from the original(well, at least I think so... never read it. I'm not a big fan of fairy tales), possibly to surprise the audience, at least a little. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work. It really just serves to distract the viewer slightly from the poor quality of the film. The pacing is completely off, most of the time you're bored out of your mind. The acting ranges, but most of it is sub-par. For some reason, half of the main cast consists of ethnics and other groups of people who really shouldn't be in a western(the part of the world, not the movie genre with cowboys and gunfights) fairy tale. I guess they wanted something unique, but it just seems terribly out of place(no offense to anyone ethnic; I'd be just as opposed to a film set in Spain featuring an all-white cast). The hunter and the king are... Mexican, it appears, in spite of them being supposed to be typical white folk. Kreuk really has far too dark skin to be Snow White, despite clearly having done all in her power(or was that the make-up department? Anyway...) to get pale. One of the 'dwarfs' was clearly a normally-sized man(though it's not as bad as 'in the Dark Forest' where only one or two of them were actually midgets). Speaking of the dwarfs, they act astoundingly… jolly. They seemed far too merry, considering they're supposed to be miners in the original fairy tale. I mean, I can accept that they're happy or positive, but the writer or director practically turned them into Tele-tubbies. Most of the new story elements seem stupid and unneeded, though I liked the addition of the queen's past. The ending suffers from dangerous amounts of Deus Ex Machina, probably because the writer had written him or herself into a hole, and decided to just have it end in an unsatisfying and abrupt manner. The whole 'fairest of them all' bit with the mirrors was painfully overdone and really, really overplayed. The special effects are nothing special. All in all, I suggest you either read the book or dust off your copy of the Disney version instead of wasting any time on this film. I recommend this only to kids who've seen the Disney version more times than they care to keep track of, and want to see a lesser version to remind themselves of how good Disney's version actually is, all things considered. No one else should bother. 1/10

Not freaky enough

[vitachiel · 4/10 · 14 January 2008]

Failed rendition of the famous fairy tale. Something's missing. There is never a moment when you get wrapped up in the story. For one thing the characters are very flat: the wicked stepmother is evil, but she lacks evilness, the gnomes are annoying, Snow White lacks character totally and the king will stay in my memory as the stupid-looking clown inside a mirror.

I think the biggest problem however is the fact that the magic of a fairy tale world isn't rendered enough. Nice bright colours and a labyrinth and a living forest and all, but the whole thing still looks more like a teletubby field than a place with magic spells. Also, an important constant factor of fairy tales - that is, the fact that the characters take wondrous happenings a tad for granted - is not convincingly brought about. I think it just requires some more freakishness...

beautiful!

[sourapple · 10/10 · 28 October 2001]

having just seen it, i was amazed at the creative way of telling the story of Snow White. the sets were colorful, the effects were "cool" (especially the mirror effects), even it was only for TV, it said so much of the story, and a remarkable presentation by Miranda Richardson, as always

it's nice to see a talented newcomer like Kristin Kreuk. all and all, i'd say a 9 out of 10 for such a somewhat original take on a fairy tale classic.

what a disappointment to see Vincent Schiavelli in this role

[abc_soup · 3/10 · 1 November 2003]

Snow white has always been, and always will be, such a classic story. Now, after watching this film i am greatly disappionted in one; the dramaticly changed, and at times confussing plot line, and two; Vincent Schiavelli role within the film.

After watching 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' just the other night, and now seeing Schiavelli in this dud of a film, i must say how disheartened i was to see such a great actor stoop to a awful rendition, as this was.

Although it was ment to be a more 'modern' insite to snow white, it really didnt do anything for me. Change of story line, bad acting, and over-done 'special effects' are only a few of the things that ruined this film.