Movie Review: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

So, I really wanted to like this movie, and I thought I was going to. Perhaps I did, but it didn't meet my high expectations. Not nearly.

I won't tell the premise here because it's a very old story and I'd be wasting my time. However, this movie tried to put a "deep," "dark" spin on it (although if you look at the story itself, it's pretty grim already - "Grimm" pun absolutely intended). It did not work! There were so many things wrong with this film, including the lack of an explanation of how the huntsman's kiss revived Snow White from death. I know it was in the 1937 Disney cartoon, done by Prince Charming instead, but it still was never explained. As MelinaPendulum points out, Snow seems to radiate this "inner goodness" without actually doing anything to earn everyone's following, which annoyed me, and the scene with all the forest creatures and fairies was a direct steal from Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, which was an excellent piece of work. But this...well. There were many plot flaws, a few of which I have just pointed out, and most of the dialogue felt stiff and sometimes downright forced.

On the good side, the visual effects were absolutely breathtaking and the main actors were quite good, despite the writing. Many people complained about the casting of Kristen Stewart, but just because she was in the mostly-horrid Twilight franchise, that does not make her a bad actress. She did not write Twilight! One of the downsides of acting is people who judge a performer's prowess by what shows said performer is in. For example, Kristen and Twilight and this. A bad movie can certainly have good actors! Kristen, so far, has seemed a pretty good actress to me. She does a great British (or whatever) accent here. And Alex Pettyfer seems another good example, though Id' have to check. And Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush were in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which was enjoyable but heavily flawed.

Which leads me to admit that I did enjoy Snow White and the Huntsman. That does not excuse its numerous faults.