On the couch

DVD REVIEW

Snow White and the Huntsman  **
Directed by: Rupert Sanders
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Sam Spruell

 

A slightly bad natured story followed the aftermath of the world clasping hands to mouths and tut-tutting furiously at the news that Kristen Stewart had an affair with Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders.
The story claimed that a sequel was planned to the movie, which co-stars Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron, but due to the opprobrium, Ms Stewart wouldn’t be involved.

 

An important question was never asked during all this nonsense, namely, why THE HELL would anyone in even partial control of their faculties want to make a follow-up to this gigantic disappointment of a film?

Snow White is one of those stories that everybody knows so well from the Disney version that they never really think much about it. In fact, you’re probably humming “Hi-ho” in the back of your head right now.

Thing is, it’s actually a pretty grim affair with dead parents, poisoning and a squad of creepy, undersized bachelors making up just a few of the key plot points. So pitching your flick as a dark re-imagining is a bit of a cop out. SWatH does take a slightly different tack on the standard version of the story, making ‘auld Snow a bit more of a riot grrrl than a swooning damsel.

At least that seems to be the idea. Unfortunately Kristen Stewart just doesn’t cut the mustard as the brave new Snow White.
A fine actress given the right opportunity – the excellent Adventureland, for example – Stewart is not really a great fit here.

Despite being at least seven billion times more attractive than a normal person, being cast as the lady to out-gorgeous a well-known glamour-puss like Charlize Theron as the evil queen is a big ask.
Not only that, but the character is expected to grow into the role of an almost Christ-like leader, culminating in a rousing speech before the film’s final battle and, whether due to youth, slightness of frame or just not being the right woman for the job, the evolution just doesn’t seem believable.

As the titular Huntsman, Chris Hemsworth does his best with a role that is essentially “big, handsome, grumpy guy with a tortured past”. Unfortunately for Chris, the film and everyone else, the writers never got around to really fleshing out the tortured past much beyond a two or three-word sketch and so an opportunity is lost.
It is left to a third of the film’s main characters to salvage some measure of entertainment and, as Queen Ravenna, Charlize Theron almost pulls off an Alan Rickman by being delightfully diabolical in the face of overwhelmingly bland opposition.

Theron is like a character actress trapped in the body of a fabulously beautiful woman. Always at her best when playing odd-balls, villains and outcasts, she is excellently cast as the clearly mental “fairest of them all”.

Far from comical, however, the Queen comes across as unnervingly bonkers and her tirades, propensity for slaughter and Madame Bovary-like fondness for bathing in liquids of questionable moral origin to preserve her youth are surprisingly chilling in comparison to the rest of the film’s high drek quotient.

Among the other cool ideas not fully engaged or followed up on is her relationship with the mirror – a cool sort of molten gold visual effect. Is it really a magic looking glass telling her to eat a kid’s heart or is all in her head, an externalisation of her craziest impulses?

Unfortunately (there’s been a lot of them today…) SWatH is riddled with good ideas left unexplored and not properly thought through.

The Dwarves are another prime example. Instead of a shower of heart-warmingly avuncular sorts, SWatH’s little people are a rag-tag band of former miners turned brigands who swear, fight, fart and make poo jokes. With Bob ’Oskins, Ray Winstone and Nick Frost amongst their number you could reasonably expect to get some value from them but again, the novelty of them not being adorable quickly wears off and their apparently spontaneous devotion to Snowy making little or no sense.

While there are moments of visual flair – the Queen’s weird bath, the mirror – there’s nothing that hasn’t been seen bigger, better and more imaginatively in films like Pan’s Labyrinth, Alice in Wonderland, The Princess Bride or even Stardust.

In fact, if it’s fairytale adventure you’re looking for, pick any of those films to sate your hunger because while it might look good on paper, in practice Snow White and the Huntsman is a pale reflection of what might have been.