Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

This movie is sadly disappointing.

[And this review is sadly overdue.]

Snow White and the Huntsman starts off serious, but halfway through seems to decide otherwise, and then goes back to its Disney fairytale roots, switching back and forth.

This means pixies, and this huge stag (or was it an alpaca?) somehow 'acknowledging' that Snow White was meant to bring life and prosperity back to the land.

This inconsistency really got to me (I thought I was going to see a dark fantasy version of Snow White), and since it was being touted in all the promos as a Lord of the Rings epic kinda thing, the only thing it has in common with LOTR is that they go to battle in the end.

Despite the interesting notion of the Huntsman playing a more pivotal role in Snow White's destiny, this unfortunately was not elaborated any further than teaching her how to stab someone in the ribs. And also, unexpectedly being the one who kissed her back to life (rather than the 'prince' of the movie, William), but being not in love with Snow (she only reminded him of his dead wife), the kiss on the lips didn't really gel well with me as it didn't seem like something the Huntsman would do.

[At least kiss her on the forehead or something!]

Charlize Theron may look gorgeous as the evil Queen Ravenna (her costumes are fantastic!), but she's basically intoning everything in the same low voice, and when she's not doing that, she's screaming. They'd also included a backstory and a creepy brother, which worked, surprisingly, as it made her more interesting. I honestly don't see why everyone's raving about her performance, though admittedly, she emotes insecurity really well, especially in her scenes with her brother.

For Snow White herself, I tried to be as removed from bias as possible, but I couldn't help not seeing Bella Swan, instead of Kristen Stewart. The fact that the top part of Stewart's face still looks half-stoned didn't help, and the script didn't really make things better either (that battle speech after she woke was awkward). Apart from the Bella Swan stigma (i.e., blank-faced and slightly wide-eyed), I thought she was pretty okay.

And besides, if you wanted to go through the fairytale route, at least make her cough up that damn apple piece when she wakes up.

I have no complaints about Chris Hemsworth; he still has some goodwill leftover from being Thor.

Also, the dwarves are, in a way, redundant. Not from a plot point-of-view, but from casting; I don't see why you would cast normal-sized people, and then CG them into little people. Yes, tiny Ian McShane and tiny Bob Hoskins is adorable (actually, Hoskins is adorable no matter the size), but if Mirror, Mirror can get real little people to play dwarves, so can you.

5/10. The reason why I'm being rather harsh with this is because I was expecting dark, not semi-dark. If you're as disappointed as I am with this, do check out Snow White: A Tale of Terror, starring Sigourney Weaver as the Queen. Don't let the title mislead you; it's not too scary, but I find it's a pretty good retelling of the story.

[Better than the above, at any rate.]