Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001)

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.

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?

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

Move over Disney! When I first saw Snow White: The Fairest of them All, I thought that it was most definitely the fairest. How did it make it on the top ten charts? Well, usually when you see a retelling of the story you see the seven dwarfs. The story is also usually made for little kids- but not this one. This version also gives background information on the evil queen and how her magestic brother turned her from a hag to the beautiful lady. She was given to Snow White's father because Snow White's father woke the hags brother up from the ice. The father was given one wish, so he got a wife. In the original they didn't go too deep. No dwarfs, but the colors of the rainbow instead (they had the names of the weeks also). This version could be enjoyed by kids and adults also. With more of a plot, more romance, and an excellent mirror room, this beats Disney 100%!