Had Tarsem Singh given his dwarves names that described his film they might be: Ugly, Creepy, Murky, Listless, Pathological, Sadistic, and Inane. Instead he went with generic choices like "Half Pint," dressing his unpleasant septet in brown duds so that they resemble excrement. The least magical adaptation of a fairy tale ever made, it features Julia Roberts, radiating smugness, as the queen who reigns from her royal phallus, er, palace (it looks like the Kremlin by way of Fassbender's Querelle), obsessed with looks and money, and mean to her stepdaughter Snow White (an insipid Lily Collins). Enter the doltish prince (Armie Hammer, the new Brendan Fraser), who, when he's not flustered in his underwear, or spanking Snow White with his sword, whimpers like a puppy, besotted by a love potion. Singh indulges his unwholesome weirdness with a kind of innocence, but only in the closing Bollywood number does his folly take flight.
