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Topic: Snow White and the Huntsman
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Melanie Loggins
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 154
From: Wayne, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2011
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posted 06-15-2012 11:35 PM
I'm showing this this weekend and got to see it tonight. (First time in about a month I've actually gotten to see the movie.)
I found it interesting in several ways. First, in what universe are we supposed to believe that Kristen Stewart is more beautiful than Charlize Theron? Even an digitally-aged Theron is infinitely more appealing and charismatic than Stewart, who for the love of all that is holy needs to learn to close her mouth sometimes. She looks like a fish. A wooden fish with no personality.
And then the plot, which is not their fault: youth trumps beauty and experience. Thatisall. Being innocent is the same as being naive and unexperienced, and that is apparently a virtue. And there is nothing in between: the women are either young and naive or older and vicious. Virgin or whore? Child or crone? As a women of, ahem, a certain age, I'd like to think there is something in between, and that women can retain some of their charms even as they get a bit older and learn a thing or two.
The movie itself looked gorgeous. The Sanctuary scenes were lovely and charming and managed not to be cloying. Chris Hemsworth dirties up nicely. Stewart luckily didn't have too many lines so her constipated delivery didn't distract too much, and Theron was great.
I liked it, but I left disconcerted. Maybe I just feel old now.
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 06-30-2012 07:07 AM
Hot on the heels of Mirror Mirror comes this, the second Snow White film the year and, frankly, it's nowhere near as fun. Snow White and the Huntsman adds a fashionable dose of seriousness and darkness to the tale but story-wise, it picks all the low-hanging fruit and struggles to maintain interest throughout its 2+ hour running time.
The story is not helped by the casting of Hollywoods blandest starlet in Kristen Stewart nor in Chris Hemsworth whose main claim to fame so far is a comic book character. In Hemsworth's defence, though, he doesn't have much to do bar getting angry and hitting things with a hefty weapon and somehow falling in love with the heroine (I'm still not sure exactly where in the story this happened but it did.....apparently). After half an hour it's abundantly clear this is going to be a generic royal-fugitive-reclaims-her-throne story and little surprises aside from the aforesaid blossoming inexplicable amour between Twi-chick and Thor.
The one shining performance in the film is Charlize Theron whose mad, desperate, evil queen is a magnetic presence. Her history is an untold story and thereby the most interesting aspect of a film. We almost feel sorry for her wretched, cursed existence, enduring her anguish for the sake of her youthful beauty - the only weapon possessed by a woman in a world ruled by men. while Theron is on screen the film has life but without her it's dead in the water.
Few resources may have been poured into the story but not so the production design which is splendid, particularly the sequence in the fairy forest which seems inspired by the work of Guillermo Del Toro. The whole production seems to be channelling Lord of the Rings and Excalibur and mimicks the grandeur of those films but they're wrapped around a largely soulless story so in the end it counts for little.
The seven dwarves presented here are not unlike the vagabonds in Mirror Mirror - a bunch of rough-around-the-edges outlaws with hearts of gold and wisdom beyond their stature. It's fun to play spot-the-well-known-actor with the dwarves which include Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Nick Frost, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan. And it must be said that the transformation of these actors to small stature is a remarkable application of special effects technology.
But for all the action and beautiful sets, Snow White and the Hunstman is actually quite boring, and were it not for Charlize Theron we'd all be snoozing in the cinema awaiting our own loved one to revive us.
6 out of 10.
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