Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Grimm's Snow White Blu-ray Movie Review

Mirror, mirror on the wall, what's the worst "Snow White" adaptation of them all?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 26, 2012

For love and the kingdom.

Rather than Grimm's Snow White, this movie should rightly be titled The Asylum's Snow White. This picture does stay true to some aspects of the original tale, but butchers enough that to title it as-is seems an insult to the authors and a disgrace to their characters. For those unfamiliar with the original text, Snow White is born "as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony wood" in reference to her skin, lips, and hair, respectively. This "Snow White" is a blonde. But this is The Asylum, after all, never mind those pesky little details. This movie still has the wicked queen and the magical mirror. But it also features elves rather than dwarfs, somehow works in outer space and reptilians into the story, replaces the apple with a ring, and develops a Snow White who's an able marksman with the bow and a capable sword fighter. Basically, this is a generic Fantasy picture that just so happens to mimic some of the basic "Snow White" plot elements. And needless to say, the results are atrocious; it's an Asylum movie after all. Need more be said?

This time, it's war.

The evil queen of Whiteveil (Jane March) is taken aback when her magic mirror declares her fair, but not the fairest in the land. She learns that her stepdaughter, Snow White (Eliza Bennett), natural daughter of the late king, is fairer than she. Of course, a queen with so much vanity and thirst for power can't have anyone in her kingdom looking better than she. The queen puts out an order for the death of Snow White, but she's up to other nefarious deeds, too. Long ago, a star fell and created the source of ultimate power, the "Veridian Flame." From that flame was born two species, reptiles and elves, the latter of whom have lived amongst and now been enslaved by man. The queen wants that ultimate power, and she's hungry for land, too. She hopes to marry and kill off Prince Alexander (Jamie Thomas King), the figurehead of a neighboring kingdom. But little did the queen realize that the power of love could trump all, and an alliance between Alexander, Snow White, and the elves could prove devastating for her plans of tremendous wealth, limitless power, ultimate control, and unmatched beauty.

Basically, Grimm's Snow White boils down to two words: "skip it." This thing is really bad, the kind of movie that just, for a brief instant (or maybe for an entire ninety minutes), almost makes its audience wish that the medium of film had never been invented. But it's certainly not the worst of the worst movies out there. It's fairer than a few, largely thanks to decent photography and some pretty nice shooting locales. Indeed, the movie is carried almost completely by its exterior façade. While it won't win any production or costume awards, they're given a little more attention to detail than is normal for a movie made by The Asylum. There seems an honest effort here with at least a small part of the filmmaking process to give this picture a little swagger, a slight step up on the competition, a modicum of respect where otherwise only negativity resides. Still, the other misses grossly outweigh these small hits. At its best, the movie feels compact, lacking in thematic or even visual scope. The nice locations are limited to the same few spots on the map, but at least it may be said that those spots ever-so-briefly manage to mask the rest of the movie's shortcomings, whether this brief reprieve comes from an honest try at scouting and costuming or if the filmmakers simply lucked out and landed a nice place to shoot and popped open a trunk with a handful of respectable garments inside.

Other than that, yes, this movie's a real clunker. It plays with a self-important air to it, like it expects its audience to take the story seriously, find some enjoyment -- perverse or otherwise -- in it, and walk away better off for the experience. As noted, it's at best a generic Fantasy film that plays slowly and with little purpose. There's little emotional range and the character development goes only so far so as to paint the characters with broad strokes, never mind any true details that might actually serve to enhance the story by making the audience care one way or another about Snow White, the evil queen, and what's his name who's the male hero. The action is listless, and the plot is lifeless: "evil, vain queen wants more than she has." The problem is that there's no lesson to be learned here, except, maybe, how to spit on a classic. Add disastrous special effects (though the magic mirror doesn't look terrible), poor acting (watch for the dead king to breathe early in the movie), and all of the usual no budget Asylum shortcomings and the result is a movie that'll leave audiences perplexed at best and angered at the time wasted at worst.

Grimm's Snow White Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Grimm's Snow White slogs onto Blu-ray with a passable but problematic 1080p, MPEG-2 encoded, 1.78:1-framed transfer. On its surface, the image can impress, looking about as good as a typical HD broadcast. Though sporting that typical HD video glossy and flat façade, this transfer can and does reveal decent and fairly crisp details, particularly in its brightest scenes. Those halfway decent shooting locales reveal nice little textural nuances in the sunshine, ditto faces and costumes. The darker wooded areas don't enjoy the same crispness, and the darkest scenes can turn downright murky with vegetation turning into smeared clumps. Low-light interiors, too, struggle to present viewers with even fair detail. Worse, color transitions prove most chunky in the lowest of light conditions, with shadows cast on faces appearing as blotches rather than smooth elements. Colors are neither vibrant nor dull; natural greens, garments, even the magic mirror's green face never really jump out of the screen. Banding is a constant problem, particularly on shots of the sky. A few jagged edges creep in from time to time as well. While certainly not a reference piece, this image passes itself off as an acceptable high definition transfer, and considering the low budget, it's hard to be dissatisfied with the results.

Grimm's Snow White Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Grimm's Snow White features a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. As is typical with The Asylum Blu-ray releases, no lossless soundtrack is available. Dialogue sometimes gets a little lost under music and effects in the most chaotic scenes, but otherwise plays with good balance and a consistent center channel presence. Listeners will enjoy modest but effective atmospherics, including but not limited to chirping birds, rustling leaves underfoot, and singing crickets at night. These are placed primarily across the front. The surrounds are used sparingly, but to fair effect when the digital oversized devil dogs (or whatever they are) run through the soundstage from front to back. There are a couple of good rumbles, notably when the dragon appears or the magic mirror speaks. Music plays with acceptable clarity and spacing. Like the video, this soundtrack won't dazzle its audience, but the results are satisfactory given the source.

Grimm's Snow White Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Grimm's Snow White contains a gag reel and a short making-of featurette.

• Making of Featurette (1080p, 6:01): Cast and crew discuss the plot, the characters, set design, shooting locales, and the technical aspects of the shoot.
• Gag Reel (1080p, 1:51).
• Trailers: Additional Asylum titles.

Grimm's Snow White Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's already been enough said. Fair production values and a handful of carryover plot elements from the original tale of Snow White can't salvage this train wreck. About the best thing one can say about Grimm's Snow White is that it's not the worst movie ever made, and probably not by a long shot, but even so it's a cruddy film with no redeeming value, though in its defense it can sometimes fall into that "laughably bad" category rather than just straight up, good old fashioned awful. The Asylum's Blu-ray release of Grimm's Snow White does feature fair video and audio, as well as a couple of extras. It's maybe worth a rental just for kicks, but it should certainly not be a priority. Most will be best served by pretending that it doesn't exist.