Only those whose entire idea of
fairy tales comes from sugary Disney cartoons will be shocked by the dark,
violent edge in Snow White and the
Huntsman, a revisionist reimagining of the oft-told tale. Those familiar
with the horrific nature of the original tales from Grimm and Perrault, et al—morality
plays with a vengeance—will get the vibe in Rupert Sanders' brooding, often
gorgeous-looking film.
Not that Sanders' plot has anything
to do with the original Brothers Grimm story that we know; scriptwriters Evan
Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, and Hossein Amini shift much of the focus to the
Evil Queen and her backstory, while reinventing Snow White herself as an action
heroine. But after the slapstick comedy of the season's first Snow White
vehicle, Mirror Mirror, this is a
refreshing attempt to retell the tale as dark fantasy—and for about two thirds
of the film's considerable length, Sanders does a bang-up job of it. True, he
falters in a few key areas, including a disappointing finale, but most of the
film works as a gripping and imaginative adventure.
Charlize Theron is marvelously
sinister as Ravenna, the predator beauty who beguiles young Snow White's
recently widowed father, the King. She weds and dispatches him in short order,
takes over the palace and the kingdom, and imprisons the little princess. While
the new Queen's draconian policies and ruthless armies lay waste to the realm,
she leaves a trail of desiccated virgins in her wake, whose souls she sucks out
to maintain her eternal beauty. Theron takes no prisoners in the role, parading
about with claws on her thumb and forefinger with which to extract the hearts
of her enemies, accelerating her lines from purr to shriek in a heartbeat.
When her molten gold mirror
inevitably tells her someone in the land is fairer than she, we meet the grown-up
Snow White (Kristen Stewart) just in time for her to escapes captivity and flee
into the wood, a place of dark sorcery full of black, scrabbling, scuttling
things and tree limbs that claw and catch. The Huntsman (a persuasive Chris
Hemsworth), is a dissolute drunkard with a tragic past; the Queen orders him
into the wood to find and kill the princess, but he becomes her ally instead. Then there's William (Sam Claflin), son
of a neighboring Duke, and Snow White's childhood friend; when he hears she's
loose in the wood, he joins the Queen's hunting party in hopes of finding and
rescuing her.
The film conveys a powerful visual
sense of its own mythos, from the pageantry of a medieval wedding to a profound
interlude among a community of women and girls who have scarred their faces to
escape the Queen's notice, to an enchanted fairy forest full of flying sprites
and gamboling wildlife. With all this going on, it's an hour before the Dwarves
are even introduced, stalwart actors all—Ian McShane, Toby, Jones, and Ray
Winstone, to name but a few—reduced to dwarf-size via CGI. (Although Bob
Hoskins has little to do but look beatific as Muir, the blind visionary in the
group.)
But the film could have used a
warmer, more empathetic actress than angsty Stewart in the lead. (Muir
rhapsodizes that "She is Life!" who will "heal the land,"
but Stewart doesn't possess that kind of radiance.) And despite its fabulous
beginning, the story falls apart in its idiotic battle-siege finale, when Snow
White dons armor and leads an army into the Queen's castle keep. Since the
princess knows she's the only one who can defeat the Queen, a stealthy approach
would have made much more sense, cost fewer lives, and been just as dramatic.
Still, there is much to like in
this movie—especially the way the cherished idea of True Love's Kiss is
handled, which may not be what you expect.
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