Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Snow White and the Huntsman, the second re-imagining of the classic fairy tale to come out this year, is the kind of film that has the right idea but mostly botches the execution. It uses the fairy tale not as the story, but as a jumping off point. This is a film of considerable imagination and scale, and it looks downright gorgeous. Why, then, is it such an interminable slog? Perhaps it is the 127-minute running time. Perhaps it is Kristen Stewart’s unremarkable performance in the lead role. Neither of these factors help matters much, but the most frustrating thing about this film is that it never conjures up a feeling of genuine excitement. It establishes its “dark and gritty” tone effectively enough, but it goes precisely nowhere from there. Most movies attempt to take the audience through a handful of emotional peaks and valleys; the problem with Snow White and the Huntsman is that it never brings itself out of the valley.

The film begins with the birth of Snow White (Stewart), a princess who is imprisoned when her father (a king played by Noah Huntley) is seduced and then killed by the villainous Ravenna (Charlize Theron). After countless years in a cell, Snow White is able to escape to the Dark Forest. Needing the princess' youth to retain her power, Ravenna sends a drunken huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to capture her. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that he’s playing for the wrong team, and the huntsman begins to protect Snow White from the queen’s forces along with the dark forest. Eventually they stumble across a group of dwarves played by CGI’d British character actors, as well as William (Sam Clafin) who helps to form a pro-Snow White army which will attempt to win her back her throne.

I, unlike some sad people, do not inherently hate Kristen Stewart just because of the Twilight series. I think she has a talent that, when combined with the right role, could pay dividends. That said, Snow White and the Huntsman does not provide that role. While she looks the part well enough, she doesn’t do a great job of playing up the childlike innocence that her character is supposed to project. Snow White herself was never going to be the most interesting part of the movie—the script and director Rupert Sanders don’t ask her to do very much—but Stewart doesn’t help herself that much either. Like the movie around her, Stewart’s performance is regrettably one-note and never quite gets off the ground.

This creates quite the contrast whenever she is paired up against Hemsworth or Theron, both of whom give solid-to-great performances in their respective roles. Hemsworth is the one most often paired up with Stewart, and that creates quite the mismatch. As people have already seen in movies such as Thor, The Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers, Hemsworth is a truly charismatic movie star in the making. Stewart just feels lost in the material, and whenever Hemsworth shows up onscreen he completely takes over. Meanwhile, most of Theron’s scenes consist of her moping about the castle wishing for more power, but she makes them count in a truly menacing performance.

In fact, Theron’s character is the most interesting part of Snow White and the Huntsman. Instead of simply being a two-dimensional villain, the film actually attempts to flesh her out into a fully-realized, somewhat tragic character. This goes out the window somewhat in the final act, but some of the film’s most engrossing scenes consist simply of Theron contemplating her predicament. She is not a nice person by any means, but it always helps when the audience actually knows something about the antagonist besides the fact that they’re, well, the antagonist.

Besides these two faint rays of hope, Snow White and the Huntsman has little to offer to the average moviegoer outside of a few gorgeous shots. While this isn’t the laziest blockbuster film I’ve seen, it reeks of a “for-hire” job all around. This is Sanders’ first major film—previously he mostly directed commercials—and there are moments where you see promise. It’s a serious concern that he was unable to give this project much excitement, but he is certainly competent enough to stay successful in the long run. One thing he completely gets right is the mixture of the computer-generated and the practical, as this universe always felt convincing and real. (There’s plenty of arguing to be done about the distracting dwarf work, but that’s for another time.) He’s probably got some good films in him, but he clearly was never able to connect with this material. The audience is likely to have similar problems.

Grade: C-