Rating of
2/4
adventure film without soul
sreekirch - wrote on 10/06/12
Fairy tales from television mini drama comes as a gear for Sanders huntsman. Yes the title might really make the enticing fans of snow white to hook up and see the spark of her charm. The theme sets the tone by realizing that a evil queen wants to be immortal forever. Well, so to speak, immortality concept, I have seen before. Recently, I had seen On Stranger Tides, where the so called fountain of youth plays a high role. So does Snow white and Huntsman offer some different theme than slappy On Stranger Tides? Oh yes. But it gets chucked so hard that Sanders forgets the plot proceedings.
A king who fought bravely falls for the charm of an evil woman (Charlize Theron). Unknowing of her intention she is made the queen and his only daughter Snow White (Kristen Stewart) witnesses his death. Nothing much to do, she starts running but caught and imprisoned for many years, queen is aging and she takes life of a young girl to be young forever. Now she brings a hard golden plate and speaks to a figure who says that, snow white is the pure blood and her heart would give her immortality. Snow white escapes the prison and enters the dark forest. Queen now, brings a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to find white, and bring her. Huntsman is forced to do the task because of a deal with queen. He finds snow white, and understands intention behind queen. They run away and seek refuge in a dwarf world. Snow white must lead the small dwarfs and with moral support from Huntsman and her childhood friend Williams, to defeat the queen. But the queen tricks snow white into her trap. What is the trap? How will white, emerge from darkness to light?
Let me remind that, screenplay is from John Lee Hancock (Rookie) of course being second in the credit. There were few scenes, where I could see the depth of writing. There were few confusing scenes also. But in total, screen writing lacked Hancock’s magic. The film begins with narration, and quickly moves into darkness just about when, plot was picking up. Nearly twenty minutes of the film, goes in dark gloomy forest. This is where the film seemed boring to me. Hancock brought light later, with the talented dwarfs. Their world was unique. A large antelope was suddenly disappeared. I expected snow white to ride on it and bring a breath taking climax. Oh I went wrong here. The film ended with predictability. Everyone knew what the ending would be. I felt a hurried up climax and the evil queen vs snow white confrontation is so simply written. Sanders could not bring light from darkness. Even with a promising visual support, writing failed to impress.
Rupert Sanders brings the fairy tale live with rich visuals and pleasant creatures. But he missed to bring tension and dramatic moments alive to support visuals. Only visuals won’t work. Kristen Stewart needs nurturing. There was more of aggression than calmness in her role. Chris Hemsworth as the huntsman was ok. There wasn’t much development to his character. Theron as the evil queen, needs to prove herself in expressions rather shouting and yelling at her guards. I would say that, Marion Cotillard would have been better in this role. The dwarfs had immensely talented actors. They could not steal the show.
So, snow white and the huntsman misses to cast its spell in the right direction. It begins all with a good narrative, some good character development, but ends with a hurried up climax which gets meatier as it nears end. Is that all! I expected more from the film.
Sanders forgets to entertain viewers. Keeping lord of the rings and Narnia in mind, he made a masterplan to bring another visually striking adventure film. But snow white and the huntsman is chunky, chopped version of all the films I mentioned above, which misfires. It was made to bring light from darkness, but sadly to say, it is dark. C
