Snow White and the Huntsman

[DawsonJ]

Has anybody seen the movie?  I won't.

The whole Kristen Stewart being "Fairest".... umm... no.  When I first saw her, I thought she looked cancer-patient sick because of makeup for the wretched Twilight series.  Later I saw her without makeup... what's the difference?  She still has the eyes of someone who vomits after every meal.  Realistically, she doesn't compare to the Queen of the movie.  Usually, casting directors are better at picking the heroine, but I think this one was using some. 

I hope she and that Harry Potter kid fade off into England-based movies and leave us alone in this country... and soon!  They can handle the liquid-paper-white, vomit-behind-the-scenes actors, but we need some healthy people on the screen in this country.  I'm glad 'Pixney' is releasing more enjoyable movies.  I'm tired of only seeing either fairytales gone back to their dark roots or movies that seem like the half-siblings of that horrid, drunk college kids' style Napoleon Dynamite. "Dude, you gotta smoke weed to watch this movie, man.  Otherwise, you won't dig it."  Yeah... uh... no thanks.

[GrahamRocks!]

Hmmm... yeah, I agree. I mean, why Snow White? Why TWO Snow White movies in the same year even?! What makes people want to do that particular story so darn much?

Although, I am curious about the symbolism is crows/ravens in the ads I saw in New York. Hmm...

[Delling]

My problem with this movie is that it looks like the setting is pretty darn pretty (which is enough for me to want to see it) ...but even the trailers make it seem like it fails on delivery... ...

The whole Kristen Stewart being "Fairest".... umm... no.

I think they are just pandering to the Twilight demographic to be honest. I think it's hilarious that the actress cast as Bella, who complains of being ugly and plain while an entire town falls for her, is being cast as Snow White...

[KatieHal]

I actually saw it--I thought I'd posted about that already, but apparently not.

It was....okay. Stewart's acting once again consisted of biting her lip, looking uneasy, and breathing/gasping a lot. The 'fairest of the land' was played as a 'beauty within' storyline, which is all well and good, but the writing was meh anyways. It was pretty, but overall felt like it wanted to be much more epic than it actually was. It also felt like there were deleted scenes that could've better connected the set pieces they hit. Theron was a scenery-chewing bright point, but her villainy wasn't really well-done either. Thor was decent, but without much to play off of and a lack of plot development, his character was just a more interesting one in a sea of others.

It COULD have been a really good epic fairy tale movie. It came close a few times, and had potential. But between writing that wasn't quite compelling enough and acting that wasn't compelling enough, as well as some miscast roles and incomplete story, it never really got to the high points it wanted.

And in the end the movie just...ends. See below for spoilers on that and how it's incomplete.

[spoiler]Most irritating was the completely inconclusive love story. I at first thought, oh okay, her childhood friend will end up being the Huntsman and they'll fall in love. Whoops, no, that's not the case, okay, neat twist. Then I figured, that's cool, they'll get to the "Prince" (who was only a Duke's son, but whatever) and the Huntsman is a more main character but not a love interest, that's also kinda cool. Okay, the Prince is getting some screentime too, he and Snow are kinda doing that shy flirting thing now...oh but his kiss isn't waking her up. So now the Huntsman's kiss is....and then that's it. There is NO RESOLUTION to this love triangle. It COULD have been interesting, well-developed, etc, but instead it just never gets resolved! I'm fine with love not being THE plot in a Snow White retelling, but it should be part of it, and it should also have a resolution!

The queen's plot: I don't understand why she didn't just do the poison apple bit much earlier. It makes no sense. Also why she couldn't just kill Snow instead of poisoning her. Also made no sense. And where did Snow learn to fight with a sword, at all? Or build the muscle strength to wear armor? Or learn to ride into battle? Or...you get the idea.

Then the last scene. What a hoot! She gets crowned and breathes heavy like she's nervous, which was fine, looks out at her court--including her two love interests, which will be all the "resolution" we get on that note--and looks for all the world like she desperately wants to say something inspiring but cannot think of a damn thing to say! So finally a dwarf jumps in to save her, "Long live the Queen!" The End. LOL, what???[/spoiler]

[Delling]

[spoiler]Most irritating was the completely inconclusive love story. I at first thought, oh okay, her childhood friend will end up being the Huntsman and they'll fall in love. Whoops, no, that's not the case, okay, neat twist. Then I figured, that's cool, they'll get to the "Prince" (who was only a Duke's son, but whatever) and the Huntsman is a more main character but not a love interest, that's also kinda cool. Okay, the Prince is getting some screentime too, he and Snow are kinda doing that shy flirting thing now...oh but his kiss isn't waking her up. So now the Huntsman's kiss is....and then that's it. There is NO RESOLUTION to this love triangle. It COULD have been interesting, well-developed, etc, but instead it just never gets resolved! I'm fine with love not being THE plot in a Snow White retelling, but it should be part of it, and it should also have a resolution!

The queen's plot: I don't understand why she didn't just do the poison apple bit much earlier. It makes no sense. Also why she couldn't just kill Snow instead of poisoning her. Also made no sense. And where did Snow learn to fight with a sword, at all? Or build the muscle strength to wear armor? Or learn to ride into battle? Or...you get the idea.

Then the last scene. What a hoot! She gets crowned and breathes heavy like she's nervous, which was fine, looks out at her court--including her two love interests, which will be all the "resolution" we get on that note--and looks for all the world like she desperately wants to say something inspiring but cannot think of a damn thing to say! So finally a dwarf jumps in to save her, "Long live the Queen!" The End. LOL, what???[/spoiler]

[spoiler]...and then she marries the dwarf! (It's a thing that she does... marries people who save her... I saw it in this other movie once...) [/spoiler]

[Deloria]

See, I wouldn't have a problem with that, except that you're not going to win a competition for having the most inner beauty by eliminating the other contestants. I'm glad they acknowledged that Charlize Theron was clearly more attractive than Kristen Stewart though.

[KatieHal]

Well...they didn't exactly acknowledge it, but they made it clear it wasn't about external beauty but inner beauty.

And to be fair, Evil Queen kinda kept trying to kill Snow first. And killed her father. And a lot of other people and kept sucking the life out of young women, soo....yeah, it wasn't much of a competition as far as inner beauty goes, honestly!

[spoiler]Although to that end, even though they also made it a plot point that therefore ONLY Snow could kill her, it wasn't very in character for her to do so. And as mentioned, where did she learn how to do this anyways?[/spoiler]

[Deloria]

This was THE WORST thing I've ever seen. Some things to consider:

[spoiler]

• It seemed like it had been written by committee: There were some scenes that were pure imagery and some scenes that were pure plot. However, there were no scenes that included plot and had subtextual imagery. And there were some scenes that looked like they were just really expensive CGI sequences that were completely irrelevant and had nothing to do with anything (like the fairies).
• Snow White was essentially a walking MacGuffin. While the plot dictated that she was so pure and innocent that her heart would rejuvenate the Queen, the idea that there was nobody else in the entire kingdom who was as nice as she just seemed odd. Also, she had been locked in a cell for the better part of ten years: her personality can hardly have been particularly developed, and if her innocence is a result of her being locked up for most of her life, she's really more a regressed child.
• The film talked about inner beauty and external beauty but frequently blurred the lines between the two. Also with purity and, implicitly, virginity. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it just seemed to go fairly unexamined.
• The white horse thing was silly. It was pure imagery with no regard to anything else, and was gone almost as soon as it had happened.
• Kristen Stewart has only one expression, wherein she opens her mouth slightly, exposing her two front teeth (which are very large and kind of distracting) and gazes blankly at some indeterminate point in front of her face.
• Their understanding of medieval warfare is absurd. Their "armies" consisted of less than 1000 men, who were often entirely cavalry. They stormed a fortress with nothing but cavalry in the middle of the day when the cover of darkness would have been much more helpful. Everyone at the forefront of the army seemed to have a different standard, when in fact each standard-bearer should be attached to a single regiment rather than clustered together. When the army comes under fire from archers, nobody thinks to raise their shield above their head. I'm also not sure if a fortress would have trebuchets *inside*.
• Throughout the second act the Queen gets older and older until she's a hideous crone - and then she looks about 30 or so for the start of the third act. Presumably she stole somebody else's youth again, but it would be nice if it were acknowledged somewhere.
• The apple and the ravens were extremely potent symbols which were used once with almost no introduction and then never acknowledged again. They consistently did this with every single symbol. (See also the white horse and the hart.)
• Kristen Stewart's speech towards the end was rife with metaphors (which were rather baffling) and was delivered with the most irritating emphases and intonation imaginable. It sounded a lot like she was hysterically screeching it most of the time. Not very commanding.
• Her being seduced by the Duke's son despite the fact he clearly didn't remember the same childhood that she did was a bit far-fetched. Also, the fact she impulsively kisses him - when he's not actually *himself* - is not indicative of someone concerned with their own innocence or virginity (and let's be clear, all this purity talk was just our inherited Victorian-Medieval code for virginity). And she only really kisses him because he's flattering her, which paints her as narcissistic rather than the pure, innocent flower she's portrayed as. Her portrayal as a person was totally different to how she actually was as a character. While she didn't seem particularly mean, she also didn't seem to be much of *anything*.

[/spoiler]

[crayauchtin]

Your reviews are so disappointing but not in the least surprising. I had high hopes the movie would be able to get past the fact it had Kristen Stewart in it and be decent!

[KatieHal]

Yeah, that's all pretty spot-on!