Review of Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) by Cheryl L — 27 Mar 2016

A lot better than I thought it would be, the film is rarely mediocre and is often quite good. Pride of place on the good scale goes to Charlize Theron as the evil queen Ravenna, who really manages to do evil witch without excessive grandstanding. She's worth watching in every scene she's in. Chris Hemsworth's good too, and I admit I wasn't expecting that. Not because he's a bad actor but because generic love interest is not usually a role that calls for much in the way of character. But he does well with it, making the huntsman a depressed drunk mourning the loss of his wife. Kristen Stewart's fine too, as are all the dwarves (famous character actors the lot of them), but they honestly don't stand out that much.

Where the film does have some problems is in adapting the tale itself. The story it wants to tell is typical high fantasy, with a chosen one princess out to reclaim her throne from an evil witch. That sort of take leaves little room for dwarves and magic apples and true love's kiss. In fact, if you don't know the tale going in, you'll be hard-pressed to understand what's up with that apple stuff since it's resolved in less than five minutes and never explained or referenced again. But while these scenes may be perfunctory, they're not exactly awkward, which is what tends to happen when fairy tales get adapted as big budget blockbusters (*cough* Maleficent *cough*). The love aspect is also surprisingly underplayed, possibly because they were expecting a sequel. All in all, the film holds together as a high fantasy epic, and it's occasional flaws never obscure an entertaining plot and wonderful eye candy.