Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
PG-13 127 minutes
PG-13 127 minutes
Action, Adventure, Dark, Fantasy, Gritty, Imaginative, Violent
Director: Rupert Sanders
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin, Sam Spruell, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones
Related Articles
A lot/Strong : Death, Gore, Violence
Some/Mild : Alcohol, Language, Sex/Nudity
No : Drugs, Smoking, Torture
Overall grade: "C-"
Recommended: "No"
Directing: "C", Acting: "C", Visual Effects: "B"
Story Line: "C-", Aftertaste: "C-", Date Movie: "F"
Family Friendliness: "F", Original Concept: "No"
While starting a review with a cliché might be considered a bad taste by some, I just cannot help myself: life is short and over one hundred and twenty precious minutes of it have been hopelessly lost, wasted away on the pathetic profanation of a movie called “Snow White and the Huntsman”.
That frightful bore happens to be utterly mediocre in almost every respect, possibly except the special effects which are brief, scarce and not even remotely sufficient for a two-hour action and adventure movie.
Perhaps, “Snow White and the Huntsman” might serve common good as a teaching aid at film schools. It is a perfect example of how not to make movies: how not to write scripts, how not to direct, and how not to act.
The only memorable fact about the first-time director Rupert Sanders is his infamously scandalous affair with Kristen Stewart. Unfortunately, there is nothing even remotely memorable about his exceedingly weak directing of “Snow White and the Huntsman”.
Having said that, it is not an easy task to decide what is more pathetic – Rupert Sanders's first time directing flop, or the dreary drag of a screenplay painfully labored by the first-time screenwriter Evan Daugherty.
It remains a profound mystery to me how the talented writers John Lee Hancock (“The Blind Side”) and Hossein Amini (“Drive”) got involved in this farce. I could only speculate that they were summoned by the nervous producers in a desperate attempt to rescue the story from the dire condition Evan Daugherty drove it into. Having a regrettable misfortune to fully experience the finished product, I could confidently say that the brave attempt of these worthy fellows miserably failed as the screenplay proved out to be unsalvageable.
The story suffers from the numerous defects prominently described on the first pages of basic screenwriting schoolbooks for beginners: unnecessary plot lines leading nowhere, lengthy uneventful wanderings in all sorts of surroundings, boringly stereotyped dialogs and monologues, severe lack of character development, and incoherencies of all kinds mercilessly polluting the flow of events, as meager as it already is.
Action lovers will be additionally disappointed with the very brief and rare, badly staged, unoriginal and unimpressive battles and fight scenes.
The outstanding mediocrity of “Snow White and the Huntsman” reaches its ugly climax in the very bad acting, caused in part by the weak directing of an inexperienced first-timer. Rupert Sanders clearly did not demonstrate enough professional skill in working with the actors. Most of them, from Kristen Stewart to Charlize Theron seemed to be hopelessly lost, left on their own to invent their roles, to fill them with substance.
People, who still remember Charlize Theron shining under the wise direction of visionary Ridley Scott in the well-crafted role of Meredith Vickers in “Prometheus”, will be appalled by her confused, unsteady, seemingly unguided by the director performance as the evil queen Ravenna
Ravenna’s featured transitions from the cold, calm, exercising self-control royalty, to the sinister angst-ridden witch overwhelmed by rage looked distastefully overdone, weird, and overall unconvincing. Instead of shocking us, striking us with horror, they would leave us in a disappointing puzzlement every time.
The main disappointment, however, was Kristen Stewart While she might be a natural fit for the role of the hanging out with vampires and werewolves teenage girl in “The Twilight Saga”, she is an absolute miscasting for the quite different role of Snow White.
Snow White is supposed to be a royal youngster, a true princess, “the fairest of them all” - a girl with a kind, caring soul beautifully reflected in her thoughtful look, an agent of grace, nobility, innocence, and light. Such a character calls for a certain type, which Kristen Stewart has very little in common with.
All I saw looking at the Snow White played by Kristen Stewart was an inexperienced teenage actor with limited abilities. I saw someone, who was a wrong type for the role, who did not have a clue how to play the role and did not have a meaningful guidance from the director, who in turn did not have an original vision for the role.
As the story unfolded, the innocent young princess was supposed to overcome numerous challenges and discover her hidden strength, her inner self, her other side – a fearless, but tender warrior, a true heir to the throne, whose destiny was to unite the people, to destroy the evil and to bring peace and freedom to the land.
Needless to say, Kristen Stewart was as hopelessly unconvincing as the charismatic military leader, as she was as the noble princess.
I am not even talking about actually showing the transformation from an innocent girl to a mighty warrior, that is not something to expect from a kind of a movie “Snow White and the Huntsman” is. We can forgive a poorly conveyed and barely explained character transformation as long as the acting itself is overall believable, which was not the case.
While Chris Hemsworth the Huntsman, fared in his role a little better than Kristen Stewart did in hers, his one-dimensional performance once again highlighted his noticeable acting limitations.
Having heard some rumors about a sequel to “Snow White and the Huntsman” with Chris Hemsworth in the title role, I simply cannot imagine him, with the limited acting abilities and the lack of charisma, carrying the whole movie on his shoulders.
One of the rare colorful birds among the dull acting crew was Bob Hoskins as Muir, one of the dwarfs. Watching him playing his small role was like miraculously taking a breath of fresh air amid the suffocating whirl of bad acting offered by “Snow White and the Huntsman”.
While the actors who played the remaining dwarfs honestly attempted to express some individuality, bring some authenticity and life into their poorly developed wooden characters, it did not look like they truly believed in what they were doing. They all looked tired and disillusioned, longing for the their little acting chores to be over.
Interestingly enough, being such a bad movie, “Snow White and the Huntsman” managed to intrigue millions of people including yours truly. The deceptively marketed movie triumphantly lured many of us in the theaters and successfully tricked yet many others into renting itself.
Whatever it was - the well-made deceiving trailer or the cult aura that surrounds Kristen Stewart after the “The Twilight Saga” - it worked.
Nevertheless, I think these clever marketing tricks might not work that well for the sequel. I want to believe that we are capable of learning from our mistakes and therefore we will not swallow the same bait the second time.
