Let’s be honest: we could use some new fairy tales. After all, passive princesses hardly reflect the modern mores of 21st century audiences. So Snow White and the Huntsman, a solemn but mostly savvy rewrite, is a welcome upgrade. Not a great or fantastic upgrade, but welcome enough.
What follows is a bumpy road trip/quest movie that takes our heroes from dark forests to Amazonian river tribes to troll infested bridges. I was pretty happily along for the ride until our heroes tumbled into a fairy grotto and Snow White is anointed as The One. You know, Neo. And, in the end, that’s what Snow White And The Hunstman feels like. A gorgeously rendered grab bag of fantasy rip-offs. From the Battle of Helm’s Deep to the White Tree of Gondor, it’s impossible to keep track of all the nods and tropes. And while Fantasy has always been a genre that borrows heavily from itself, it’s possible, with sprightly performances or well-drawn characters, for the audience to lose itself in this quest and not think too hard about the fact that one item in a story bears more than a passing resemblance to another item in another story.
And that’s where this film falls short of the mark. Stewart’s subdued performance is, admittedly, a vast improvement on her normally sullen, hair-in-the face turns in movies. But this is a modern, spunky Snow White who’s asked to rally troops and storm the castle. Lip bites won’t carry the day. The drunken Huntsman character is obviously supposed to inject some much needed vigor into the proceedings and one can easily imagine their first casting choice, Johnny Depp, jack-sparrowing his way through forest, bridge and grotto. Hemsworth is a magnificent action figure, supremely charismatic and a deft hand with an axe. It’s lucky for Thor that axe choreography bears a striking resemblance to hammer choreography. Oh and he’s Scottish for some reason. But even Hemsworth’s considerable presence cannot buoy Stewart.
It’s not until the dwarves show up two-thirds of the way through that things liven up. The dwarves are a magnificent array of every hobbity-faced actor not currently filming that Tolkein movie and their snappy rejoinders keep the third act from buckling. On the evil side of the aisle, Charlize Theron obviously threw herself into this role with every sinew in her magnificent body. This is a fully-rendered performance, from scalp to toenail. And her thunderous rages, when they come, are accompanied by the the most fearsome bloodshot eyes this side of a Disney cartoon. Theron is hampered, however, by some clumsily written monologues of how she’s been done wrong and handicapped by a slightly muddy british accent. Fans of 80s Sword and Sandal flicks might be even more taken with her henchman/brother, the icy Finn played with Rutger Hauerian chilliness by Sam Spruell. His platinum Prince Valiant hair puts all of Ravenna’s elaborate coifs to shame. The cast is rounded out by the wholly unnecessary Sam Claflin as Snow’s childhood friend Will. An earnest archer who, when coupled with Stewart’s passive Swan-like presence, seems more like an obligatory Twilight nod to a love triangle than anything else.
But for all this. For all these problems. Was I not entertained? Oh I surely was. I only complain because this movie could have been truly great and was, instead, gorgeous and fun and, ultimately, just fine. First time director Rupert Sanders seems to have wanted to make a fairy tale-action-romance by way of the art house. The style is elegant but ultimately at odds with the blatant melodrama of the Queen’s tantrums and the efforts of our embattled heroes. The pacing often feels off and the screenplay very disjointed in tone. But the brightest star of the whole show is Tim Burton collaborator, Collen Atwood, who is responsible for the dazzling costuming. But even if this movie is the fairest of them all, it can’t have my heart. Snow White And The Huntsman is a lavish summer spectacle that wants to be a classic but, ultimately, ends up being a reminder of all the better movies you’ve seen.