So as always here's a review with spoilers. This film is definitely a visual treat and it relies heavily on CGI to carry it through, mostly it's a success in that department but some of the happy Disney esq fairytale forest animals were a bit too fake and the fairies a little too cheesy. In this particular scene it evidently seems to be taking a generous inspiration from Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke with a great white stag styled as a king of the forest or rarely seen spirit.
The film also has some similarities to Snow White: A Tale of Terror giving the evil queen a loyal brother to act as a devoted, oddly close servant and also, to a degree, as a huntsman. The dark side of the film is lush and gothic, usually relying on scenery and CGI rather than the cast, although it's almost lost in the almost out of place fairytale animal land the dwarves live in. It's like a bad mismash of an adult film and a kid's one, trying to find some middle ground and failing. Honestly, in my opinion this one isn't for the kids but in saying that I loved The Nightmare Before Christmas as a child and my niece loves it, so maybe then again it's not too dark, although witnessing a bloodstained murder right at the start of the film and being shown further scenes of murder, birds getting their hearts eaten, and a horrific forest than makes its heroine come across as hallucinating on drugs, it might be a little too much for some of the younger ones.
It's easy to see how the produer, Joe Roth, also produced Alice in Wonderland, from a fantastical forest sequence to weird creatures, mushrooms with eyes and finally a heroine in armour. It would have been nice if the film could have pulled away from Wonderland more and tried to be a bit more original. Given that the trailers mention it's from the producer of Alice in Wonderland it seems like they are riding on its success rather than attempting to just hope this movie can stand alone without names.
When it comes to the cast, the accents were questionable and it's hard to say why they were necessary, it's a fictional story, could it not be set in some nondescript country? Do we really need Kristen attempting a bad English accent and Chris a questionable Scottish one? Kristen in the leading role was hit and miss for me, it's hard to see past her role as an angsty teenager, she does her best and in some scenes it works but in others she just seems out of place and seems to be relying on a pout and careful placement of her hair to pull of the innocent, loved by all princess half the time. That being said she was more convicing as warrior Snow, given a decent speech to rouse her followers, although her last line to Ravenna 'You'll never have my heart' was bordering on cheese.
Chris portrays the Huntsman as a broken hearted, guilty drunk who blames himself for his wife's death. He turns on the queen and agrees to help Snow when the queen's brother Finn scorns and tells him that the queen can't bring back his wife as promised. His reasons for helping Snow change and he develops feelings for him though she almost seems to be bordering on being a rebound for him rather than the love of his life as he's clearly still in love with his dead wife. His scenes are too few and his relationship with Snow is never quite resolved or made clear. He falls for her a little too quickly and their potential relationship is almost an afterthought. It is predictably and unsurprisingly his kiss that awakens Snow, becoming a cliche when it could've avoided being one as it was breaking away from the prince and princess romance. It's just way too obvious that he's going to be the one. Why?
Well the prince, actually a duke's son in this, William, is hardly in the film at all. A former playmate of Snow's he was forced to abandon her when Ravenna's soldiers took the kingdom. When he learns that Snow's still alive (he just assumed she was dead and made no effort to find out otherwise) then he's all gun ho and determined to rescue her alone. He joins up with Finn's group (how he finds them is unexplained, they should be in the forest looking for Snow but have stopped in a village), as a rather skillful bowman. Snow and him have a reunion during an attack and he joins her group.
His biggest moment of development comes when he and Snow share an intimate moment together in the snow. She initiates a kiss with him and he gives her an apple in remembrance of a game or trick they played involving one. Alas it's all a trick as it's Ravenna in disguise, mind you though it shows some of Sam Claflin's best acting as he does a great job of switching from romantic to cold and wicked. It's never explained how Ravenna tricked Snow into sneaking away from camp with her in this disguise without Snow realising that the real William was still right there. After this William fades into the background as just another warrior and Snow forgets any feelings she had for him despite being the one to intiate the kiss and falling for the trick because of love, as the queen says, a fact that becomes most poignant when she merely clasps his hand after coming back from the dead.
It is good that they avoid the tired formula of love triangle that we got from Twilight but in saying that it was still present enough for my boyfriend to wonder if the director had in fact directed Twilight. It doesn't try to do anything new it simply does little at all, downplaying any romance in this story, making it sloppy and pointless. You wouldn't even notice if William wasn't in the film, he's meant to represent a love potential/rival but asides from that one kiss when it was actually Ravenna in disguise, there's nothing to his relationship with Snow.
The dwarves and Ravenna were the best bit in the film but sadly they were all underused. The dwarves added some comic relief and also some sorrow as one of their members had to play the role of 'character death to add shock' (the eighth member of course ala Once Upon A Time) and give the others even stronger determination to destroy Ravenna. Excellently casted and brilliantly shown, it's just a pity they didn't have a greater role.
Charlize Theron is stunning and wonderfully talented as always, she steals every scene's she in playing a cold, ruthless and yet almost pitiful queen to perfection. She gives the evil queen some depth as we get brief flashes of her personality, past and motives. Her mother gave her the means to remain beautiful and young forever and also warned her of men and being destroyed by the fairest blood. She has a strange relationship with her brother and a hatred of men as she was kidnapped as a child and saw her home ruined by a king and mentions one (probably the same one) casting his aging wife to one side for her and her fear that he would do the same to her. She used her beauty to snare Snow's husband and killed him, certain he would be no different to any other man. She trusts no one, is clearly psychotic, suffering random outbursts of rage and grief, she is obssessed with her looks and seems to consider herself just in a fashion. She mentions she is kinder to people than they were to her when she was in poverty and calls herself the queen than the land deserves, presumably believing everyone deserving of punishment. The mirror also seems to be in her head suggesting she is schizophrenic, although this is never gone into.
Snow White is a contradictive character of this, she is portrayed as the heroine of the country because she is so innocent and pure and wildlife and fairies are drawn to her and people feel better in her presence and yet it is only by casting aside this persona and becoming a warrior who is willing to kill and thus shed this innocence that she becomes their hero. So she stains her goodness to destroy evil despite telling the Huntsman that she didn't think she could kill. It's a pity because really we've enough heroines kicking butt and it would be nice to see one succeed in a different fashion especially when it's one who's meant to pure, fey like and so innocent that even animals will come to her trustingly. In this way she's a little like Once Upon A Time's Snow, only with the latter there's no pretence that she's almost sickeningly innocent, pure and lovely. When she stumbles about the forest looking nervous with the Huntsman you can believe she's a frail princess and whilst it adds to her character to see her go from this to a warrior leading men into battle it's almost too much of a change.
The plot was decent, predictable but still enjoyable, it was good to see how they managed to turn a short fairytale into a lengthy dramatic film and I think it will renew people's interest in the tale and perhaps help increase the popularity of dark fairytales, undoing some of the damage Red Riding Hood did. I wish they could have done something more original and developed the dwarves, the Huntsman and William more but I guess they didn't want the film to be too long and this film really is more about the special effects than the plot. The film has plot holes (why did Ravenna bother to spare the princess at all, everyone thought she was dead so it was hardly for appearance sake) and it lacks originality- taking girls' youth for example has come up in Stardust, Hocus Pocus, the alleged practisings of Elizabeth Bathory and others.
Unsurprisingly there are already rumours of a sequel or a trilogy, which might explain why the romantic angle of the film was left unresolved and why some characters lacked development. I guess this will depend on the success of the film though I have to say it would be interesting to see what a Queen Snow White would be like, it's not enough that we get to see the princesses after they've been married and/or crowned, the only example I can think of is The 10th Kingdom. You do have to wonder about their reigns, it can't all have been happy ever after.
So, overall I'd rate this 6/10, it's not original enough and relies too much on its special effects to see it through. Kristen pales as a lead in comparison to Charlize in terms of looks and acting (to be fair it's hard to see anyone looking fairer than Charlize but since that's what Snow White is about they could've casted someone else) and it's hard to see her as anything other than the passive Bella Swan. The love triangle is irritating, undeveloped and pointless, William is a heavily underused character and the dwarves lack screen time. The film itself borrows from other adaptations (the Disney version, Snow White: A Tale of Terror), as well as Princess Mononoke. That being said the plot is decent enough, the dwarves are fantastic when present and the queen makes for an interesting villain who has some development and is saved from being a one dimensional nutcase.
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