I had no idea Snow White was such a hip and happenin’ chick—where have I been? She’s had a TV show (“Once Upon a Time”) and three movies (Mirror, Mirror, Grimm’s Snow White and Snow White and the Huntsman) in the last year? And I thought Alice was the cool one.
For fear of revealing the fact that I’m old, I have to admit that I had NO IDEA any of this was going on. But it does make sense, now that I think about it. After watching Snow White and the Huntsman, the latest big screen “re-imagining” of the Snow White fairy tale, I understand the four basic truths that created it:
-Nobody has any original ideas anymore
-The biggest movie moneymakers in the past few years have been dark fantasy: Hunger Games, Twilight and Harry Potter
-Nobody remembers anything
-Girls rule
Broken down another way, it becomes a formula: rehash it-worked-before plot points into a simple dark fantasy story led by a strong heroine who has support from handsome men. Oh, and special effects are nice, too. Throw some of those in and the boys may come too.
Oh, I’ve become so cynical, but it’s movies like this that made me that way. I had such high hopes for this movie. It looked different, a new twist on an old tale. There are elements of it that are different, but more in an odd and weird way than a cool and interesting way.
That’s really the best word I can use to describe this movie: weird. From Charlize Theron chewing the scenery in one of the most hamfisted villainous performances I’ve ever seen (and I bought a ticket to this movie to see Theron), to Chris Hemsworth’s I-don’t-really-know-what-I’m-doing-here blank stare to Kristen Stewart’s pulse-less pursuit of an emotion, this movie is riddled with things that just plain confused me.
First-time director Rupert Sanders seems lost and it shows. While this movie is cool to look at, I just couldn’t help being bored and uninterested in anything that was going on. And Kristen Stewart leading an army into battle? I’ve seen Adam Sandler movies that were more believable.
Ok, Snow White, you had your chance. Cinderella, you’re up.