Watching this incredibly dull movie I realized something, Sigourney Weaver plays one hell of a bitch. She does. In this, yet another enactment of the classic fairy tale, Weaver plays the wicked stepmother of Snow White (who goes by some name that I can't remember at the moment). Step-mom marries Snowies dad (played by Sam Neil from Jurassic Park), who's got lots of money (and in the 17th century, with money comes power), however Snow (who's 8) doesn't take kindly to the lady and lets everyone know.
On the couple's 9th wedding anniversary, the Step-mom entertains a crowd with her enchanting voice (obviously over-dubbed), only to be upstaged by Snowie when she arrives in a low cut white gown that her beautiful dead mother (who she happens to be a spitting image of) once wore. The Step-mom is upset because Snowie is always stealing attention away from her, so she tells her mute brother to kill her.
Now Mutie is an incompetent boob and he only manages to chase Snowie into the forest, where she seeks refuge in a seemingly abandoned church. Mutie of course suffers the wrath of his sister... as do the help of the palace who are all killed when their food is poisoned. Snowies dad after injuring himself in the search for his daughter is held hostage by Step-mom, who has also performed a number of mystical feats in attempt to kill Snowie. But Snowie has met the man of her dreams, a resident of the abandoned church (along with seven others... and only one of them's little people!). Together, they kill the wicked mom, burn down a castle, save her dad, fall in love... not in that order. Happy ending, yay... it finally Snows.
This movie plays out in very choppy fragments, one scene can be performed one day, and the next scene will be three weeks later, yet no one clues the viewer into this fact. What seems like a span of two days is probably supposed to play out over a span of at least a few weeks. It gets quite confusing.
Also disappointing is the mystical element in the film, which doesn't play out at all well, save for the Step-mom's creepy mirror. However when Weaver turns into the old lady with the poison apple, or when she causes torrential winds and earthquakes, it's seems so very out of place. The film starts out in an interesting and beautifully shot scene, with Mom and Pop White in a carriage on the way to the doctor, Mom in the middle of labor. The horses are attacked by wolves and the carriage spills over the side of the trail... mom is impaled, and dad must rescue the baby from its dead mother. After that tragic scene everything seems false and unfitting, the tragedy attempting to play into horror. The problems lie in both the storytelling, the pacing, and the script which even gifted actors like Neil and Weaver can't make work. The only saving point is the beatiful gloomy visuals which set the mood for an eery movie. To bad the rest of it didn't work out.