Snow White and the Huntsman (rant)

I'm a bit late on this one, but I guess it's better late than never. As far as I know, the general word on the street about this movie is that it's "not as bad as it seems". I respectfully disagree.

Well, not so respectfully. By the way, this review is going to be considerably more spoilery than what I usually write, so if you possibly believe your "enjoyment" will be hampered by knowing plot details, turn back now. Know, though, that I have little positive to say about the movie.

Snow White and the Huntsman is damn bad. Really bad. Laughably bad. It's a two-hour fantasy spectacle with next to nothing fantastical or spectacular about it, with some of the worst casting I've ever seen in my life. I don't think I've ever before complained about casting as a part of a movie. Sure, I've done it about individual characters, but never as a whole. I don't think there's a single character in this film who's cast well.

Where do I start? The name of the film is completely misleading. Did you know that the Prince Charming character still exists in this retelling? There's actually a love triangle. The huntsman (who is never given another name in the film, in some sort of attempt at "deep and meaningful"), played by Chris Hemsworth, is really arbitrary to the movie. His relationship with Snow White is barely developed at all, and in the end he just leaves when she's crowned Queen.

Snow White (Kristen Stewart) herself is one of the blandest, least interesting heroines I've seen in a movie in a long time. Her character is so inconsistent it's almost impossible to name any sort of qualities about her personality. They try to paint her as the Super-Good Holy Mega-Pure Maiden of Destiny, but she doesn't really come off as especially pure in spirit at all. She acts like any person who's being first imprisoned and then pursued. Later, before the laughably bad action finale, she suddenly becomes this fierce military leader just because, with no kind of explanation other than "it's her destiny to win". If you're trying to go for the Pure Maiden Who Can Ride the Unicorn and Is Flocked Around By Animals archetype, you are not allowed to make that character a military leader who rides a horse into battle and swings a sword to kill people. Read The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren sometime. In it, the characters discuss this dilemma.

The Queen (Charlize Theron) is one of the few enjoyable things about the movie, in the same sense that Bruce Payne is the most enjoyable thing about Dungeons and Dragons (playing the respectful role of That Blue-Lipped Guy): she is unintentionally hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing almost every time she was on-screen. The completely original character of the Queen's brother Finn is also really funny, which is partly because the character isn't the least bit threatening and partly because he sports the funniest haircut I've ever seen. That hairdo is so silly that there are no pictures of it online. I guess the actor demanded to be kept out of the marketing.

After Snow White escapes into the forest, the bad guys hire the Huntsman to track her. He immediately chooses to save her instead and they run from one horribad action scene to another. The movie tries to justify the Huntsman's presence by saying that he is the only man who has ever went to the Black Forest and returned. Yet, when he guides the villains into the forest, he basically just says: "Wait here, I'll go get her." And then he follows her tracks and finds her nearby. The Queen's men didn't need him at all, it seems, because it's later established they have a tracker of their own. The titular characters then escape through the forest and find this hidden village. The Queen's minions show up there within hours. They followed the heroes' tracks through the forest? I thought only the Huntsman was able to navigate through! Why do you lie to me, movie?

To skip ahead a bit, there's the part with the apple about half an hour before the end. It's established that Snow White is the only one who can kill the Queen, and the Queen can gain eternal youth by killing Snow White. So she poisons the girl and then proceeds to incredibly slowly drain her soul or whatever. The other good guys show up, and the Queen flees. Why? They can't kill her! The only person in the world who can kill her is comatose in the ground! JUST KILL HER FRIENDS AND THEN TAKE YOUR TIME IN FULFILLING YOUR PLANS! AAAARGHBAGFHG!

So here's the very short list of good things: I kinda like the concept of women committing self-mutilation to stay under the Queen's "fairness radar". That was clever, and actually carried dark ideas that could have been explored more if the movie wasn't preoccupied with trying to be super-hip for the young-uns or whatnot. Secondly, the visuals for the fairy forest are initially really cool, and I like the design of most of the stuff. Though that changes quickly with some of the worst CGI magpies I've ever seen. They look like something out of a 90s educational feature with a special effects budget of fuck all. Thirdly, the Queen's glass-shard minion would have been really cool if basically all of its screen-time hadn't been in the trailers already (and if it wasn't basically stolen from Medi-Evil).

It's just a really bland and dumb movie. I only got this upset about it in retrospect, when I realised it had initially fooled me into thinking it was average. Don't go see Snow White and the Huntsman. It has horrible performances (both bland and overblown in nature), incredibly large plot holes, very weak drama and suspense, and insults the intelligence of its audience.

Also, there's eight dwarves. Why?