Snow White and the Huntsman Review

"Do you hear that? It's the sound of battles fought and lives lost. It once pained me to know that I am the cause of such despair. But now their cries give me strength. Beauty is my power."

-Charlize Theron "Snow White and the Huntsman"

Released in 2012 under the direction of Rupert Sanders and distributed by Universal on a budget of $170 million; "Snow White and the Huntsman" is yet another adaptation of the original Grimm fairy tale onto the silver screen. Prior to this film adaptation however, director Tarsem Singh ("The Cell" and "The Fall") had already released his own version of the fairy tale, "Mirror Mirror," a film that showcased beautiful set pieces, elaborate costumes and witty acting but lacked depth and interest in the overall story. But upon seeing this film, I am convinced that clearly, Tarsem tried much harder than Rupert did, despite it's ridiculous and in-joke attitude. For a film that had the same producer responsible for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland,"  I'm shocked that I could have found a film even worse than that one.

Plot: In a magical kingdom that believes in Christianity (I know, right?), the father of the princess Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is killed by the devious enchantress Ravenna (Charlize Theron) and imprisoned for years until she comes of age where she is to be taken by the bird-eating, youth-sucking queen and killed for the Queen to become immortal. But because of her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) and his downright creepiness, she escapes and runs into the dark forrest where black pods spray hallucinogenic fumes that make people think they're seeing weird-ass things that make me wonder if Terry Gilliam directed those scenes. Because the men are downright pansies, the Queen hires a drunk huntsman so ingeniously named Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to track down Bella White in the woods where she is looking for Edward- oh sorry, my mind wandered. They meet up, he agrees to protect her or whatever, they meet up with 8 digitally-shrunk dwarves (Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Johnny Harris, Nick Frost and Brian Gleeson) who take them to a Disney-like forrest where they learn something about destiny or whatever, blah blah blah, she eats the apple, she gets kissed, wakes up and gives this uninspired speech (personally if that was me who woke up, I'd want a shower, a steak and to go use the bathroom first before giving a speech), leads an army to storm the castle and at this point, I'm already RiffTraxing the movie long before it's over.

Hey look feminists! A revisionist fairy tale that portrays the princess character as a badass instead of a weak fainting woman as she has to go through with her destiny to heal the land and other such bullsh*t. Yeah, because that's totally original and hasn't been done to death already, right? This wouldn't bother me so much if the pacing was a LOT tighter than this film presents it. There were instances where I felt like it was throwing in quiet moments interspersed with the action scenes (which, by the way, are horribly edited) and the quiet scenes themselves are boring and offer so little interest when we know what's going to happen since this film is pretty much a pale copy of Burton's "Alice in Wonderland." It's truly shocking how ridiculous this film's writing is, it's almost like somebody wrote a fanfiction and it got put on the silver screen, but as if Hollywood isn't familiar with doing that now, are they ("Twilight" anyone?) It tries to play out the whole "Snow White but told much darker,"  they sold "Revenge of the Sith" using that quote and that barely did squat to excuse the film's poor writing and just because a movie is darker than it's source material, it doesn't excuse a film's poor writing quality.

Characters:

Kritsen Stewart: Is without a shadow of a doubt, the absolute WORST thing in the movie. She clearly was not chosen for her acting ability but just to have a familiar face in the film to make the teenagers come to the theater. She already is a terrible actress who does not have the ability to carry a film, whether good or bad and this is really shown in this film. A movie surrounded by big names and yet she has to be the lead to carry it? I'm sorry but somebody screwed up in the casting department and Rupert clearly doesn't know how to direct people well. Through the majority of the film, she spends her time just staring out into space and giving this "do I have something stuck in my teeth?" look when she looks around the place most of the time. Even her big "inspirational speech" just has her heaving her chest a lot. Either that was just to entice the perverts in the audience or to show off her "depth," honey, it ain't working and your power of breast having hast no effect on me when I'm spending the majority of the time staring at your teeth that look like they're trying to escape this movie, not that'd blame them. Also, she has two guys fawning over her, gee, does THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?!?!

Chris Hemsworth: Trust me when I say this, but the poor guy is really trying. After "Thor," you would expect this guy to keep playing tough guy roles or break type-casting and try something different like a Woody Allen film or- oh no wait, he's playing a tough over-confident meat-head who wields a large weapon which he whacks enemies with. The difference here? He's supposed to be playing a drunkard (I would be too stuck in a movie like this). To Hemsworth credit, he plays it straight and doesn't half-ass it as much as everyone else does in this film. Out of all the lines in the film though, his was perfect for RiffTraxing, from his drunken dramatic speeches to this "hold the hilt and don't hesitate to thrust" bit which goes nowhere but only further shows off Stewart's 'acting.' 

Charlize Theron: She's better than this, believe me, she is much better than this. She borderlines between subdued and eerie to wide-eyed and over-the-top. Her creepy scenes come off as bizarre or humorous, like how she eats the innards of dead birds, sucks the youth out of young girls, bathes in milk or cream (there's a sexual allegory in there somewhere) and gives people heart attacks by doing the "Gaddy-moo" thing from "Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom," does that make her sound scary? It could if she didn't yell her lines 40% of the movie. Strangely, nobody in this film can say "out" without saying it even louder a second time. That yelling is one thing that made me lean over to my dad and whisper "Academy Award-Winner folks…" Some people have said she's the best actor in the movie, while I think she suffers from the "so over-the-top it's like "Battlefield Earth" line of acting. I already mentioned the whole "gaddy-moo" thing but Charlize's performance either had me rolling on the floor laughing or cringing in my seat from her poor dialogue. She should have been the focus of the film, not Bella Swan.

Bob Hoskins: Was he the blind dwarf?

Ian McShane: Nice beard dude.

Ray Winstone: Was he supposed to be Grumpy?

Toby Jones: From a british government agent to a dwarf, this guy's career ain't look to proud to hold his head high, no pun intended.

Eddie Marson: Wasn't this an inspector in some movie with Robert Downey Jr.?

Johnny Harris: What was his character name again?

Nick Frost: Wait, he was in this? Why didn't anyone tell me?

Brian Gleeson: I remember he died. That's it. His dad is a better actor than this guy, no offense Brendan.

Everyone else is just forgettable or can be named "Alan Smithee," they might as well. I barely remember any of them.

Production: This is the only positive thing to say about this film. It's a very good-looking film. What with it's sweeping camera shots of forests, mountains, snow and ice, castles, muddy villages; it all looks really good and mood-settling. But there's something rather familiar about it all…

Hey, folks, notice that one camera shot of Snow White riding a white horse in the woods while riders wearing dark clothing chase after her? I half expect a dramatic choir and the black riders to make screeching sounds…

But wait, what about this one camera shot where Snow White and her posse walk up a mountain while the camera does a helicopter shot spin around them while they walk up the mountain? Why do they then appear in a snowy part of the landscape while climbing up it? Not to mention this dramatic shot of an army of horse marching in a line to assault the enemy while the camera follow them and shows some of them falling off their horse?

Should I make it anymore obvious? No? Then I'll say what you've already guessed: this film ripped off Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings." The shots are so obvious, the costumes, the cinematography, the only thing this film differs from those films are it's shorelines and it's editing. Also to add to the scene of Snow White riding on a white horse, the white horse falls into the mud and begins sinking, do I even need to bring up the emotional scene from "The Neverending Story" to make my point?

Oh, but don't think Lord of the RIngs is ALL it rips off from. A dark forrest with strange creatures and smoke that rises from the ground while a man guides a woman through the woods? Gee, if I wasn't a ciniphile, I wouldn't say that that seems like they ripped off "The Princess Bride." Oh, but the biggest thing they ripped off that nearly made me stand up in the theater and shout "you f*cking unoriginal hacks!" was this forrest scene (which in NO way is supposed to reference Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," right?) that a large deer with enormous antlers that stands in front of a human being; for any anime fans, you probably already know that this is ripping off of the forrest spirit from "Princess Mononoke." What does this all mean? It means that this movie was afraid to be original so it had to resort to ripping off other fantasies just to compensate for it's shoddy acting and confused script. The things they do, they do pretty well and make it look nice, but when I see something that reminds me of other already existing film material, that just becomes distracting and the film's creativity starts to go down the drain.

Bottom Line: Just like "Avatar," "What Dreams May Come," and "Transformers;" the film may look really pretty and boast some cool visual effects, but it's hard to be invested when you have a lead actress who is so inexperienced an actress that she cannot carry a film as loose and unfocused as this one with big name actors around her, she dangerously undermines the film. The story is something we've seen a million times, the characters are just people we've seen before and the visual effect department has no confidence to make their own special effects that they have to steal from other fantasy movies just to show off their budget. I only recommend this film unless you can get your friends together to MST3K the movie, believe me, that'll be more entertaining and you can come up with better jokes and have more fun than sitting through this film. That said, wait till DVD or Blu Ray to Riff it with your friends.

Final Rating: 2/5

Until next time, I'll continue to stoke the fires for when we burn through celluloid.