Snow White And the Huntsman (12A.)
Directed by Rupert Sanders.
Starring Kirsten Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Ian McShane. 123 mins.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, why on earth is there another Snow White film just two months after the last one? Maybe because this one thinks it has an original take on the fairy tale. You see this is Snow White for boys just as much as girls, a Grimm action fantasy for those who found the Narnia films a bit weedy.
It is, of course, a ludicrous creation, a white elephant that thinks it’s a unicorn. Everything is done with a berserk fervour. I’d describe it as dark and gothic but that would summon up images of some chintzy little Tim Burton frippery. This lays on the (12A) gruesomeness like someone had slighted its masculinity. The Evil Queen (Theron) is like something from an Anne Rice novel and is assisted by a brother who looks like an albino Chris Morris in a Jimmy Saville wig.
The bleak first hour is a preposterous miscalculation and the audience (of real people) seemed to turn on it very quickly. The second hour is lightened by the appearance of the dwarves (Hoskins, Winstone, McShane, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan and Nick Frost.) Even then it is not exactly a barrel of laughs but their arrival does leaven the ferocity of the gloom a little.
This is a Snow White that nobody wants or needs, but it is well made pointlessness. In the week of Prometheus’s release the influence of Ridley Scott is all over this. The battle scenes seem inspired by Gladiator and Robin Hood while the enchanted forest resembles Legend.
The film has lots of visually striking scenes but these do not build into a coherent vision. You never really believe that castle is in the vicinity of that bit of woodland. Similarly the acting is, taken in isolation, rather good but none of it really goes together. Theron is a tortured evil queen and emotes likes she thinks someone might chuck her an Oscar for it which often leaves her looking a bit silly.
As Snow White, Stewart makes a tremendous Joan of Arc. It is a little ridiculous for the Mirror to declare her scrawny tomboyish features to be the fairest of them all, over Theron’s Aryan perfection (surely an enchanted mirror would have rather traditional views of beauty; I can’t see them embracing androgyny) but Stewart makes a strong case here for having real star quality.
Hemsworth has been invited to play the Huntsman in the style of Gerald Butler, which is quite a limitation but he copes well enough. He is even invited to voice over a few lines of introduction at the start which says a lot about the film’s vision: imagine a world so absurd and out of kilter that Gerald Butler is the narrator.
Directed by Rupert Sanders.
Starring Kirsten Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Ian McShane. 123 mins.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, why on earth is there another Snow White film just two months after the last one? Maybe because this one thinks it has an original take on the fairy tale. You see this is Snow White for boys just as much as girls, a Grimm action fantasy for those who found the Narnia films a bit weedy.
It is, of course, a ludicrous creation, a white elephant that thinks it’s a unicorn. Everything is done with a berserk fervour. I’d describe it as dark and gothic but that would summon up images of some chintzy little Tim Burton frippery. This lays on the (12A) gruesomeness like someone had slighted its masculinity. The Evil Queen (Theron) is like something from an Anne Rice novel and is assisted by a brother who looks like an albino Chris Morris in a Jimmy Saville wig.
The bleak first hour is a preposterous miscalculation and the audience (of real people) seemed to turn on it very quickly. The second hour is lightened by the appearance of the dwarves (Hoskins, Winstone, McShane, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan and Nick Frost.) Even then it is not exactly a barrel of laughs but their arrival does leaven the ferocity of the gloom a little.
This is a Snow White that nobody wants or needs, but it is well made pointlessness. In the week of Prometheus’s release the influence of Ridley Scott is all over this. The battle scenes seem inspired by Gladiator and Robin Hood while the enchanted forest resembles Legend.
The film has lots of visually striking scenes but these do not build into a coherent vision. You never really believe that castle is in the vicinity of that bit of woodland. Similarly the acting is, taken in isolation, rather good but none of it really goes together. Theron is a tortured evil queen and emotes likes she thinks someone might chuck her an Oscar for it which often leaves her looking a bit silly.
As Snow White, Stewart makes a tremendous Joan of Arc. It is a little ridiculous for the Mirror to declare her scrawny tomboyish features to be the fairest of them all, over Theron’s Aryan perfection (surely an enchanted mirror would have rather traditional views of beauty; I can’t see them embracing androgyny) but Stewart makes a strong case here for having real star quality.
Hemsworth has been invited to play the Huntsman in the style of Gerald Butler, which is quite a limitation but he copes well enough. He is even invited to voice over a few lines of introduction at the start which says a lot about the film’s vision: imagine a world so absurd and out of kilter that Gerald Butler is the narrator.
