Review: Snow White and The Huntsman

Remakes are a very common and ordinary aspect of filmmaking in modern-day Hollywood. With that being the case, I can't say that I was surprised at the fact that there was a remake of Snow White coming to the big screen called Snow White and The Huntsman. This one is different from some of the other films based on this story. This one is darker and has more action than the others, but it's also more mature.

With a familiar story, Snow White and The Huntsman has an evil queen (Charlize Theron) who will do anything to keep her power. When it is learned that Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is destined to replace her, she learns of her whereabouts and orders a hunter (Chris Hemsworth) to track her down and prevent it from happening. The huntsman however has plans of his own once he comes to understand who she is and why she is so important.

Snow White and The Huntsman got off to a solid start and stayed that way for a decent amount of time. They took their time building up the story and much of the early stages of the movie keeps the spotlight on the Queen, her rise to power and her continuous fight to stay there. After keeping allowing her to be the center of attention a while, the focus then shifts onto the other characters and their roles in the story.

Once that happens, the movie takes an obvious and significant hit and slows down a bit because of it. There were quite a few "nothing" scenes during this time and I know that some of it could have been greatly reduced in size. Stretching out thin material is one of my pet peeves and it can hurt any movie that it occurs in. In Snow White and The Huntsman, this practice made things truly boring at this point in the film.

In between these stages of boredom, they did manage to continue the story as the are almost fully focusing on the journey of the characters Snow White and the huntsman, but they also put in some quality action. The fights/battles that are taking place make the movie at least somewhat tolerable when nothing else is happening. That's important for me, because everything around the action is so drawn out and tedious. I never actually make an early exit, but some movies make you think about it and this is one of them. I thought about it on at least a couple of occasions during this movie.

One of the primary reasons for the failures that existed here, is because Snow White as a character is so bland and rarely brings anything to the screen that's worth caring about. Stewart has no charisma and really not much personality to speak of either. Creating these scenes around her wasn't the greatest of ideas and that becomes easier to see when you look at the fact that there's nothing going on outside of the action.

Another problem that I had with Kristen Stewart was the fact that she was given the role in the first place. Snow White is supposed to be extremely beautiful and that can't be said about her at all. I'm betting that you can walk down the street and find a plethora of women more attractive than she is. She's not ugly, but the fairest of them all? Seriously? If this version of Snow White was the most attractive woman in the land, then I feel sorry for the men who had to live there. The rest of women couldn't be anywhere near close to hot. Charlize Theron has her beat by miles in the looks department and this doesn't allow this aspect of the movie to come off plausible or genuine in the least.

Now that I've spoken about some of what I don't like, I'll look at what I did like. Throughout Snow White and The Huntsman, the best scenes are easily the action sequences. Just about all of them are good, but the last one is unquestionably the best of the bunch. As I said earlier, I wanted to leave a couple of times, but these are some of the reasons to stay. That's especially true for the finale. Without the action, I shutter to think how bad this movie could have gotten if they would have replaced any of it with more empty scenes that include an uncharismatic and dry lead actress.

To summarize things, I'll say that there's no way in the world that this movie should have been anywhere near two hours long. Outside of the early parts led by Theron and the action, there's not enough material to make the epic that they dreamed of creating. Snow White and The Huntsman could have been better if director Rupert Sanders would have shortened some of the scenes, given Theron more to do after a stellar start and put a little more action and adventure into this action/adventure. It would have also helped matters if they chose a lead actress who had the ability to give life to a lifeless version of Snow White.

Score: 2/5

Rating: PG-13

Director: Rupert Sanders

Cast:
Kristen Stewart
Chris Hemsworth
Charlize Theron
Sam Claflin
Ray Winstone
Bob Hoskins
Nick Frost
Toby Jones
Ian McShane

Film Length: 127 minutes

Release Date: June 1, 2012

Distributor: Universal Pictures

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