Tuesday 9 October 2012

Today's Review: Snow White And The Huntsman


Hur, Kristen Stewart, hur hur, no facial expression. Well, now that's out of the way, I can focus on the rest of the movie.

Yes, it's the second Snow White themed movie this year. But it's pretty different from the slapstick family Mirror, Mirror. This is a dark and dreary Snow White, an attempt to sex up and mature the tale, like Red Riding Hood did, but with less emo. Yes, we have Kristen Stewart as Snow White, who is probably not everyone's choice for "fairest of the land", but they've made all the other women disfigured and stuff so it makes sense here. Charlize Theron is the evil queen, who has some pretty powerful magic to play around with, but when she's not using that she can still scream in a scary manner. We also have Chris Hemsworth trying out another accent as the huntsman, who swears to protect Snow White once she escapes the queen's clutches, and accompanies her on her journey to lead the resistance.

Yeah, the resistance against the evil queen and her army of glass soldiers, that was in the tale, right? It seems this is another one of those movies that cash in on a well known property, but probably could have been a good movie on its own merits. Instead we have plot elements from the fairy tale forced in alongside Lord Of The Rings-esque rally and battle scenes. It all seems a bit mish mash, especially when in the midst of all the dark, serious stuff our heroes come across a bunch of dwarves.

They're probably one of the best things about this movie though, to be fair. There are some great faces in the band of dwarves, such as Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost and Toby Jones. Their performances outshine those of the rest of the cast, though really that's not saying too much. Still, mish-mashy plot and somewhat bland acting aside, it's not a bad movie. The special effects and battle scenes are well done, and the atmosphere of the whole thing is certainly quite dark and mature. Good, but not great.

My rating: 3/5

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