Snow White and the Huntsman
This movie is a re imagining of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". The story has been bastardized through the years (especially by Disney) into a pretty tame story of envy and true love. Sure, this was always a story of envy but the original story is much more interesting to read or probably to watch. For this movie, they take some ideas from the original fairy tale and others from the Disney movie and make it into an amalgam of both but they also add some stuff of their own. In this version, Snow White (played by Kristen Stewart) is held hostage by the evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) until she escapes from the Queen's brother (Sam Spruell). The Queen sends the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to kill her but he can't bring himself to do it so they escape and pass through different parts of the kingdom in search of safety. That is the basic premise of the movie. Obviously, it gets a little more convoluted with trolls and faeries and Ian McShane as a 4 foot dwarf.
First, I'd like to talk about the plot of the movie. While there were some interesting moments in this film, everything felt a little disjointed. It's not surprising that the screenplay was written by three different writers. It feels like two different movies for two different crowds and they never really mesh. While the idea of having the Huntsman play a bigger role is a nice touch but the character of William (Sam Claflin), who is supposed to be her friend from so long ago who risks his life to get her to safety and then nothing really happens, is completely wasted. The Queen's brother is also there to just bother the good guys and get them moving from locale to locale. I feel this was drawn up to have some sort of love triangle angle between Bella, Jacob and Edward... wait... I sometimes confuse movies.
Officer: Mr. Mirror, I'm going to have to take your driver's license away.
Mirror: But why?
Officer: Does the term legally blind mean anything to you?
Now, while better things could have been done with William and especially the dwarves, the biggest problem with this movie is in its cast. If you go at to the movie's IMDb page, it wouldn't surprise me if people were excited to see the movie. Charlize Theron is a proven actress; Chris Hemsworth while sometimes lacking charisma can do a good job; and the dwarves are a who's who of British acting with Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Nick Frost, and Johnny Harris. It was missing Dame Judi Dench and Bill Nighy and it would be a done deal. These are all fantastic actors and they mostly do okay in this film, but the main and most important character is sadly played by someone who has no range. Kristen Stewart makes this movie completely dull. The moments where we are supposed to feel happy or hopeful or sad and distraught are ruined by her mechanical expressions. How are we supposed to feel connected to this movie if the person we should rally for can't give us even one heartfelt smile? They also tried to make Snow White into some sort of Joan of Arc character but Stewart doesn't inspire anyone to believe in her cause.
And you know what is worse, it feels like she was picked for this part for the sole reason of bringing in the legions of Twihards out there. And you know what makes me feel shittier? I actually used to like Kristen Stewart. I thought she would become a pretty good actress. I am ashamed. When Snow White tries to rally the troops, I couldn't help but groan. Here is where I thought director Rupert Sanders should have come in and done something about all this. All he could do was waste 120 million dollars on the cinematography, costume design and special effects.
Colleen Atwood did a magnificent job with the costume designs for the movie. She is definitely one of the highlights of the whole film. The feather coat looks fantastic on Charlize Theron and makes her look incredibly dark and more important beautiful and menacing at the same time.
The set designs are also very well done. The forests, the castle on the shore, the faerie part of the forest, even the lakeside village looked great. They definitely outdid themselves in the technical aspects. Especially when it came to things like the troll on the bridge and the fact that they took full size actors and shrunk them down. It was off putting at first, but then they definitely do grow on you.
The score was also a bit of a mixed bag. A lot like this film. While there are incredibly beautiful music in there to fit with the scenery, the main song for this movie feels so out of place. "Breath of Life" by Florence + The Machine is just not the song for an epic like this one. "Gone" by Ioanna Gika is breath taking, unlike the song mentioned before.
Now, am I the only one that is creeped the hell out by two different men who are neither family nor romantically involved with Snow White kiss her in the mouth while they think that she is dead? Ugh. Perverted is more like it.
Officer: Dude... step away from the dead lady! Can't you at least wait till she gets to the morgue? Jeez!
In the end, this movie is a lot of style and very little substance. There are some amazingly stylish shots. The shot of Theron giving her back to the camera and she is bending over and you can see the bones of the spinal cord is fantastic. As is the shot of her coming out of the white substance she gets into (milk? I hope its milk cause otherwise... *shudder*). It shows that Sanders does have potential to be a pretty good film maker. It is not the worst movie out there, but its not worth watching in the theaters. The sets are great, the special effect are pretty damned good, the costumes are fantastic but the acting (from Stewart), the screenplay and the directing are amateurish.
3 out of 10
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