Avengers Grimm (2015)

When Rumpelstiltskin destroys the Magic Mirror and escapes to the modern world, the four princesses of "Once Upon a Time"- Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Rapunzel - are sucked through the portal too. Well-trained and endowed with magical powers, the four women must fight Rumpelstiltskin and his army of thralls before he enslaves everyone on Earth.

REVIEW: Avengers Grimm is The Asylum's Avengers mockbuster from 2015, which is about fairy tale characters Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Red Riding Hood (who all have their own unique super 'Princess Powers', with the exception of Red Riding Hood, but just like with Hawkeye she's great with a bow and arrow) jumping through Snow White's magic mirror into our world to help Snow White battle Rumpelstiltskin in our world, before he takes over both their world and ours, with the help of a shard of the magic mirror.

This type of movie is when Asylum is at their best, IMO. Sure, it may be a mockbuster ripoff of a big budget movie, but they do so in such a unique way. I love stuff dealing with fairy tale characters operating in the real world, which is why I love ABC's Once Upon A Time so much, and this feels more like a mockbuster on that show at times than it does Avengers.

The acting is pretty rough though, to be 100% honest, definitely one of the aspects that brings this down a bit. However, Casper Van Dien as Rumpelstiltskin chews the scenery like a MFer and amps the fun level up to '10' all on his own. This guy was having FUN with this movie, and because of that, we get to have fun right alongside him. In addition, the action scenes are well-shot and pretty interesting, albeit a tad on the short side, but each one is pretty engaging and stands apart from the other action scenes, so they're all pretty memorable and, like I said, engaging in their own ways, especially toward the end with the Fairy Tale Princesses fighting Rumple's henchmen and invading armies throughout Los Angeles.

I also love how great the characterization of everyone was in this movie. Each character gets their own moment to shine, as well as their own moments of character building, and not just the main Princess characters either, but even smaller characters such as some of Rumple's henchmen get a surprising amount of characterization that helps us care about them and what happens to them.

As far as Asylum movies go, Avengers Grimm is quite fun, has a pretty unique story to it, makes you genuinely care about the characters, and is competently-made compared to some of Asylum's other fare at times, although the rough acting and budget restrictions are definitely on display, but anytime Casper shows up you easily forget about that because he just chews the scenery like a god damn boss. This was a rewatch for me, and even after three years this still remains one of my personal top favorite Asylum movies.

9 out of 10 rooms in the Psych Ward