Predicted Rating: 3.5 stars
Directed by Rupert Sanders (Directorial Debut), Starring Charlize Theron (Monster, Prometheus), Chris Hemsworth (Thor, The Avengers, The walls of many Teenage Girls) and Unfortunately Kristen Stewart (Any Printer Near You).
This movie follows the standard Snow White story, which is fortunate because now I can make jokes about the whole movie without revealing any spoilers. So for those who don't know, Snow White (Stewart) has been imprisoned by her evil step-mother (Theron) who is under a spell which gives her eternal beauty. Through positive encouragement, her mirror reminds her of this fact on a daily basis until it is revealed that Snow White will dethrone her as the fairest in the land. The evil queen must now hunt down Snow White before the spell is broken.
I am putting it out there now, since the plot has been tried and tested on many occasions so it is hard to fault that, so I will spend most of my review talking about the casting and acting. So I am just going to get this monkey off my back, KRISTEN STEWART IS THE WORST ACTOR ON THE PLANET! Before this movie I hadn't seen one of her filums before so my criticism has been based on what I have seen on the interwebs. I have compared her to a blank piece of paper in the past but after this, that comparison is a huge insult on all paper, at least blank paper has some talent and personality. Watching Kristen Stewart attempt to act was extremely painful. She just mopes around the whole time with a look on her face like daddy only got me a Lamborghini Gallardo for my 16th birthday not a Mercielago. I played an equivalent of a drinking game in the movie, every time she appeared on screen with her mouth half open I ate some popcorn. I tell you what I ran out of popcorn fast. Whoever decided to cast her should be fired, rehired then fired again. It was a terrible decision to cast her. A couple of awesome choices would have been Emma Stone, but she would have been too busy with spiderman, or Australia's own Emily Browning of Suckerpunch fame would have been perfect.
Other than that casting choice, the others weren't too bad. Chris Hemsworth was a perfect choice as the Huntsman, I was thinking and couldn't find anyone better. Charlize Theron was actually a good choice as the evil queen. My first choice would have been Uma Thurman, but she is my first choice for a lot of movies. Cate Blanchett would have also been good, then we could have had the Aussie trio with her Hemsworth and Browning. I did also applaud the choice of having some fairly familiar method actors such as Ian McShane and Nick Frost as the dwarfs, I did have a good chuckle at them being towered over. The producers tried to move away from the traditional dwarf names (Sleepy, Sneezy etc) and give them Lord of the Rings names, which is fortunate as I don't remember one being called Sleezy, who is thrown into picture. The performances put on where quite admirable as well, apart from Kristen Stewart. Hemsworth held his own and Theron did well as the queen even though she really needed to take a chill pill at stages. The performance highlight though was definitely Charlize Theron's boobs. They were spilling out all over the place when she was wearing that tight corsett at the start.
Even though the plot followed the original Snow White story quite closely, it seemed bland and boring at stages making me find it hard to get into the movie. For most of it I was kind of sympathising with the evil queen trying to work out if there was anyway we could make a compromise so she could keep her good looks and everyone lives happily ever after. I was rooting for Hemsworth though to get with Snow White, even if it was in the back of my head that he deserves a much hotter actress. So when Snow White's childhood friend stuck one one her after she ate the apple and didn't wake up I was quite happy. his meant Hemsworth was going to get amongst it. When he did plant one on her and she woke, this is when it hit the fan. She made some extremely long winded and pointless speech where she became both a qualified blacksmith and alchemist in her sleep and then decided to go all Joan of Ark on everone's arse. The ending was fairly predictable too, but like many movies today leaves it open for a sequel, hopefully titled Snow White Does the Huntsman.
The torture I endured at stages whilst watching this movie would have been saved by something I like to call The Vow effect. For those who don't know, The Vow is a fairly recent movie starring Rachael McAdams and Channing Tatum, where McAdams falls into a coma, wakes up and does not believe she is engaged to Tatum even though he insists. I have asked the same question to many girls and the answer is always the same, if you woke up from a coma and Channing Tatum is standing next to you claiming to be your fiance you would just roll with it, thus the movie is unrealistic and many people could have been saved from having to watch it. So essentially The Vow effect is a movie making an unrealistic decision just so it can carry on for the full length. Snow White and the Huntsman has something similar. When the evil queen says mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all, the mirror answers back saying you, but wait a challenger appears. At this stage a realistic outcome would be to show a picture of Chris Hemsworth (see picture below). Everyone, including the queen would be happy with this and we could all go home happy. But no, the mirror had to say Snow White and a collective sigh went around the room.
Overall this movie was quite disappointing. The special effects were good but that comes to be expected from movies these days and they no longer seem special. The plot followed tradition reasonably closely but lacked something that should appeal to modern audiences. The performances from most of the actors was good but Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth still couldn't carry the debacle that was Kristen Stewart.
Overall Rating: There are better movies out there at the moment, 2 Stars
Up Next: Either The Amazing Spiderman or Ted, let me know which you prefer and I will review that
