This has been a big couple years for the world of fairy tales. There were the TV shows “Once Upon a Time” and “Grimm,” who were supposed to retell the classic stories with a “twist.” Then there was the childish comedy “Mirror Mirror” that was nothing more than a last-ditch attempt to save Julia Roberts’ career. Then Rupert Sander’s “Snow White and the Huntsman” came out this past weekend promising a darker tone on the centuries-old fairy tale and, while it was beautifully made, I found it to be disappointing and anti-climactic.
The movie starts out pretty traditionally, with the huntsman’s voice-over telling the story of how Snow White (played by a nervous Kristen Stewart) was born and how the evil witch Ravenna (Charlize Theron) became queen and ruled the kingdom. It quickly jumps forward enough time for the child princess to grow up into a young woman imprisoned in a tower. This is the classic way for the story to go, and it was going along fine. Then, through a series of fortunate events, Snow White escapes and flees into the Dark Forest. The Queen, to forever preserve her youth and beauty and simultaneously rid herself of the one who could destroy her, hires the town huntsman–the only person to know how to maneuver through the Dark Forest–to track Snow White down and bring her back so the Queen could cut out her heart.
In every interpretation of the Snow White, the one constant is the good huntsman (Chris Hemsworth). The Evil Queen might be a conceited witch or a woman scorned looking for revenge, and Snow White may be a helpless princess or a knight fighting to take back her kingdom, but the Huntsman that spares her life is the single part that always stays the same. The ruthless yet honorable man doesn’t usually get much face time. In this movie, the huntsman’s background is that he’s a widower who likes to drink himself into unconsciousness, almost like a Western anti-hero figure.
The thing that really disappointed me about this movie is that it had so much potential to be a great movie. Unfortunately, it was written so poorly that everything that could have gone well…didn’t. First off, there was little to no character development. I had no connection to anyone in the movie; I had no reason to care about anything of them. It got to the point where when I saw the village being burned or that one guy that everyone was supposed to like died, I just shrugged it off. I had no sympathy for the Queen, I couldn’t identify with Snow White, I couldn’t feel at home with the dwarfs, and I didn’t understand the other characters. All I could do was laugh at the Queen’s albino brother. So character development, second only to the actual screenplay, gets a C-.
Speaking of the actual plot line, it was very, very underdone. Where the story should have gone right, it veered left. There were so many opportunities for great story-telling that must have just slipped through the writers’ fingers, and there was an obscene amount of unjustifiable holes in the movie that added up to absolutely nothing. At one point, while Snow White and the huntsman are moving through the Dark Forest, they come across a troll…that’s it. That is literally all that happened, they had a 30-second encounter with a murderous troll. They could have used him for something, but they just didn’t.
Later they come to a beautiful magical forest full of things you’d expect in “Alice in Wonderland.” So much could have been said or done by all of the involved characters, but the peaceful scene ends abruptly before you have time to appreciate it. Both the troll and the wonderland creatures could have returned later in the movie to add to some kind of triumphant effect but they didn’t, resulting in this continuous dryness.
The one thing that “Snow White and the Huntsman” can be commended on is the visual effects. They were so well made and simply stunning. The Dark Forest was eerie and I wanted to stay in the wonderland forest forever, and I wish they were incorporated into the story more. The battles scenes, too, were really explosive and eye-opening, though they strongly resembled the battles from “Lord of the Rings.”
This is the third Snow White story remake just this year. Following the movie and the show, I thought this would at least bring something new to the table, but it didn’t at all. Honestly, it pretty much copied every fantasy story ever made: “Chronicles of Narnia,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter,” “Mulan,” even “King Kong, “but it failed to make anything new or fresh out of it.
This was Rupert Sanders’ feature film directing debut. His prior experience consisted of directing Halo commercials. I guess for such an inexperienced crew member, the flaws in the movie are acceptable to an extent, but he shouldn’t have been let on in the first place. The actors should have been able to carry the movie, but they couldn’t. Charlize Theron (“The Italian Job”) only had a select few moments of good acting. Chris Hemsworth (“The Avengers“) was exactly the same as he always is, which is a shame because he’s still in the breakout phase of his career and he could do so much better. Kristen Stewart (“Twilight“), who played the titular main character, was useless. She said less than anyone in the entire movie, even the dwarfs. There were plenty of moments when I thought she was going to say something but didn’t. That’s just not how it works.
I didn’t like how they tried to twist the romances but then didn’t follow through with the idea, I didn’t like how they put a slightly erotic–and wholly unnecessary–tinge, and I didn’t like that I watched most of the movie saying, “Umm, how did that happen?” It was so utterly bland that my initial indifference towards it turned to disdain in a matter of hours.
Overall, I probably couldn’t really call this a bad movie, but there’s no way I could ever call it a good one. There was no point to it and there was a lot more wrong than there was right. Other than having one of the best visuals I’ve seen in a while, there’s not much reason for watching it.
“Snow White and the Huntsman” is rated PG-13 and runs for 127 minutes.
