Despite a runtime of over two hours, Snow White has little idea of what it wants to say. With good acting and great visuals, it almost fools one into thinking this is an exciting fantasy adventure, but there is an omnipresent feeling you are watching a storyboard, not a story.
When a movie of this scale and intensity fails to have much of a plot, the reason tends to fall into one of two categories: The picture was rushed into production before the script was polished up, or the original script was too long and some idiot cut it down into its current mess. There are three writers on Snow White, which doesn’t prove it one way or another, though it is always a little risky to have so many cooks in the kitchen. Especially when the director wasn’t involved in the script. Not to say it never works; it just doesn’t here.
The first major flaw to come up is the absurd level of self-consciousnessSnow Whitehas. In absolute terror of being seen as a childish fairy tale, the picture is loaded with eye-stabbing, nudity, worm-infested corpses, onscreen spousal murder, rape, incest, hallucinogenic drugs, occult human sacrifices, and other nasty stuff you didn’t see in the Disney version. The problem is, it isn’t particularly well-incorporated into the screenplay. In fact, it comes off as absurd in a Tropic Thunder-style parody sort of way. It doesn’t help that unlike last summer’s similar Conan the Barbarian, which was guilty of the same mistakes, this movie takes everything deadly seriously.
Snow White is a rough retelling of the story--a beautiful princess named Snow White (Kristen Stewart) flees her evil step-mother queen(Charlize Theron) and runs into a forest. The queen sends a huntsman(Chris Hemsworth aka Thor) to find her, but instead he helps her. There is also a prince (Sam Claflin) and dwarves, but those seem tacked on in this version of the tale.
I was humored to see Charlize Theron playing the same character she did in Young Adult. No, seriously--the exact same character. She plays a sensually selfish lady nearing middle-aged obsessed with finding youth. The scenes where she begins to age, but then undoes it with middle age are a near shot-for-shot redo of the Young Adult scenes featuring the application and removal of make-up.
Hemsworth is, as usual, charming, but by making him play a hopelessly depressed widower there is little he can do. In fact, there is little anybody can do. The characters spend there whole time running from and fighting with each other; there are few moments reserved for actual interaction.
The plot makes little sense with several astounding coincidences and uses of deus ex machina. There is a subplot involving a feud between the Huntsman and the queens pervert brother, Finn (who for an unexplained reason is played by Sam Spruell dressed up to look albino); there is also a love triangle set-up for a sequel between the prince and the huntsman, though that goes nowhere. Towards the end, the movie abandons the whole story-line of the fairy tale, but not for a particularly good reason. Substituting the Huntsman as the love interest for Snow instead of the Prince should have a reason--instead the Huntsman merely plays the same role as the Prince, albeit he doesn’t have a kingdom.
Frustratingly, the dwarves are used solely for comic relief and as a way to provide extra info to the audience; this is necessary since about ten minutes into the film the narrator who previously wouldn’t shut up suddenly dies and we never hear him again.
Legendary costume designer Colleen Atwood has designed some coolish costumes, though they each seem to be duplicates of ones from other movies (mostly her own). Rupert Sanders (in his directorial debut) and the visual effects team do a great job of creating fantastic settings and award-winning cinematographer doesn’t go overboard with artificially darkening the images (most of the time). The action scenes are entertaining, though they would be more-so if there was a story to go with it.
There were lots of doubts surrounding Kristen Stewart’s ability to act. I think it is safe to say that whatever problems there were in her performances in Twilight 1 and 2, she has either outgrown or were solely due to that character. She does a better job than most actresses her age in Snow White & the Huntsman.
The problem with Snow White is mainly due to a lack of a story. As a mindless action flick, this movie would work just fine, if you can handle the fact that it treats itself so seriously. Still, some superior recent fantasy epics like Eragon seem to have gone under the radar. It might be more fun to see one of them instead.
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