Snow White And The Huntsman

Snow White And The Huntsman

Directed by Rupert Sanders

Snow White is a story that has been told in hundreds of ways over the past 200 years, many of which straying from the original story. Therefore, it was to be expected that Snow White And The Huntsman would be a decidedly different take on the fable. Sadly, despite being a slightly different variation of existing retellings of the story, there is little else to set this movie apart. The flaws greatly outweigh the perks.

In order for this movie to have worked, many aspects of it would need to be changed. For one: the performances. The entire cast feels out of place in this movie. Charlize Theron, who is usually quite effective as a performer, delivers one of the hammiest performances I've seen all year; Chris Hemsworth struggles to consistently maintain his Scottish accent, resulting in a hybrid of Thor, Shrek, and a hint of Crocodile Dundee; Kristen Stewart, however, has no difficulty with consistency, maintaining the exact same facial expression throughout the film's entire running time. All in all, the central cast is a mess. It's as if none of these actors knew exactly what they needed to do, or were simply incapable of doing it.

Secondly, the title of the movie is quite misleading. The name Snow White And The Huntsman would imply that there were some form of relationship, interaction, or something between these characters, but by the end of the movie, we see that that is simply not the case. Several scenes near the end would lead us to believe that they had grown together in one way or another as characters, but the chemistry (or lack thereof) between Stewart and Hemsworth was so nonexistent, I hadn't even fully realized an actual relationship between them was attempted until these scenes had occurred. The result being that the intended emotional nature of these moments feel wildly out of place, even further throwing off what little rhythmic strength this movie already possessed.

The visuals are a large part of what makes this movie watchable, but they aren't even anything remotely original. Scene-by-scene you can see the blatant influence of other more popular films in its atmosphere, effects, scope, and even cinematography. This results in what feels a bit like thievery. As I have made perfectly clear before, to me, originality isn't everything, but in order for a movie to work, there has to be at least a little creativity put into it.

The pacing is inconsistent, the acting is weak, the central casting is terrible, but the visuals are effective, though wholly unoriginal. All-in-all, it's a bit of a mess. Still, there are much worse ways to spend two hours, as this is at least watchable. Fans of fantasy may even enjoy it, but it certainly doesn't earn my recommendation.