"Snow White and the Huntsman" - 2012 - movie review

Snow White and the Huntsman is an ambitious attempt to infuse the deservedly maligned Hollywood fairy tale film with some of the dread and foreboding of the source materials. Fairy tales after all were more often than not cautionary tales parents used to drive home points about the environmental and personal dangers of the medieval world. They were not meant to send little girls and boys off to dreamland with delusions about the dangerous, inbred swine collectively called "royalty" dancing in their head as most fairy tale films of the past half century or so would have one believe. So, if there was ever a genre in need of a reboot it is the fairy tale genre and Snow White and the Huntsman deserves credit for attempting to do just that.

First time director Rupert Sanders doesn't take anything remotely resembling a risk with the presentation yet his lack of directorial imagination is more than compensated for by art direction that is spot on. The first hour of the movie evokes comparison with nothing short of "the Lord of the Rings" trilogy. It's that visually sumptuous. At this point too the script has no obvious shortcomings since we're not expecting things to pay off or wrap up at the 1 hour mark.

Charlize Theron does a laudable job imbuing the evil stepmother Ravenna with the genuine creepiness of the narcissist. She gives a master class in acting to her young cast mate and Kristen Stewart suffers by comparison, her extremely limited gifts on view for all to see. Chris Hemsworth, while not exactly challenged by having to play a guy who beats people up while looking hunky doing it, nonetheless takes another giant step in making the movie going public forget about his Aussie compatriot, Sam Worthington. The rest of the cast do their jobs with the elves - supporting characters if there ever were any - perhaps enjoying the most satisfying and complete story arcs.

So as I said the first hour or so moves along smoothly and I was pleasantly surprised by my level of engagement. As things moved into the second hour, though, cracks began to open in the production, and questions began spilling out. Why, for instance, is this film called "Snow White and the Huntsman" when it is clearly about Snow White and her evil stepmother? Every plot point driving the narrative has to do with the relationship between Snow White and Ravenna. Another question: why even bother introducing the character of "William", Snow White's childhood friend who comes back into her life in young adulthood? The natural thing is to think there will be a budding romance between the long separated pair, or that William and the Huntsman will compete for Snow White's affections as the story moves along. But they don't. William is just kind of... here, and the Huntsman is just kind of... over there and the two never bother to duke it out over Snow White and indeed she never bothers to do more than slip a glance to one or the other here and there and maybe offer a wry smile or two. And speaking of wry smiles; Kristen Stewart? Fairest of the all? Nothing personal against Ms Stewart but...

To be fair though none of these questions are of the kind that derail a film by themselves and Snow White and the Huntsman manages to get across the finish line more or less in one piece. It should be noted though that the last 15 minutes or so seem very hastily constructed and have the feeling of editing-by-committee where things could go one way or could go another but wind up going nowhere. The emotional neutrality of the finale is maybe the most head-scratching part of the whole film which ends, not because the story is wrapped up, but because the screen fades to black.

As a whole I enjoyed this movie much more than I thought I would. While comparisons to "the Lord of the Rings" dissolved pretty completely during the second hour the movie still stands on it's own and has enough things going for it to recommend it.