Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Happily N'Ever After II - Snow White, another bite @ the apple
I forgot I hated Happily N'Ever After I.
I forgot I hated the stupid creatures, Mambo and Munk.
I forgot how bad the animation is. (Compared to other contemporary animations. Barbie is better... and that's much said.)
But I'm glad I did, because "Another Bite @ the Apple" was better than the first one.
In this, Snow White is a spoiled, vain, egocentric brat. She lost her mother, who was good and kind, when she was just a kid, and now her life is all party, fun and looks. Her father decides she needs a woman's touch, so he decides to remarry.
There is this ugly girl who was told that the Queen was loved by everyone because she was beautiful, so she tried to be as beautiful as the queen had been. The Magic Mirror makes her that. She looks exactly like the Queen, and the King wants to marry her.
Snow White isn't happy about it, and mopes, so Lady Vain gets an enchanted apple from the Mirror. She gets Snow White to eat the apple. The apple doesn't kill her, it makes her share her innermost thoughts. This Snow White has something nasty to say about everyone living in the town, and Lady Vain lets everyone know what Snow White thinks about them, and they get angry and Snow White flees from the town.
(Remember, the apple didn't twist her mind, she really, truly thought that way.)
She finds her way to the Seven Dwarves, who remember well the Queen, and because of her they decide to teach Snow White a lesson, and they manage to make her change her shallow ways to being as good and kind as her mother had been.
So she goes back to the town just in time to interrupt the wedding, and her father decides he doesn't need to marry anymore, now that Snow White has changed. Lady Vain gets ballistic and uses the mirror as a weapon.
Earlier Snow White had met "Sir Peter", an orphan who grew up in one of Queen's orphanages, and who adores the Queen, and doesn't much appreciate Snow White. Now, that Snow White has changed her ways, Peter noticecs that he likes her after all. When Lady Vain starts shooting magic around, he jumps in to rescue Snow White, and is knocked out of the way. (and he stays knocked out!)
Her father joins the battle but he is old, and is just about to fall, when Snow White joins him and steadies his hand. Together - even Mommy Queen gets to be part of the family union, as they use her picture to guide the magic flare - they break the mirror and Lady Vain is ugly again.
They are just about to hang her, when Snow White interferes and tells her outer beauty is not worth much, it's only inner beauty that matters, and the dwarfs agree to teach her the same lesson they taught Snow White.
Happy End.
Now, it wasn't anything one will regret missing... it's more the other way around. One might regret seeing it... Especially if one paid to see it.
It has a nice message - helping others is what makes you beautiful, not clothes and make-up and hairdo.
Also, the villain, even though she tried to kill Snow White, is not evil, just misguided, and there's hope for her.
Animation, as said, was pretty bad.
The king is a poor version of the king in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and he wears Burger King crown...
The wedding is accompanied with Wagner's wedding march, the bride is wearing a white dress, and the priest reads the Christian wedding ceremony... I suppose people wouldn't know otherwise that it's a question of a wedding.
And even though the prince... er... Sir Peter, the orphan, I meant, had to fetch Snow White to the wedding, and found her in the middle of the forest fixing Humpty Dumpty, and then they galloped back to the castle and had to get over hurdles to get to the church in time, Humpty Dumpty, and everyone else was in the church already... just in time to witness in favor of Snow White, when Lady Vain claimed she hadn't changed.
But if you can ignore such small details, it's not a bad movie.
It's not good either.
(Made 2009 by BAF (Berlin Animation Films)
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2 comments:
At least the movie emphasizes inner beauty, as you say. When I was little every fairy tale emphasized that the heroine was beautiful, and until I discovered Pippi Longstocking I thought there was no hope for me.
I know this is really old, but I just saw this today, and I wanted to say that while the movie isn't good (the animation mainly), but I thought the Snow White character is the best version I've ever seen. She's funny, 3-dimensional, and goes through a believable character arc. I also thought it pretty funny how they even went so far as to use cartoon sound effects on her, as it made her feel more relatable and normal, like none of us are perfect.
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