SNOW WHITE [2025]

Snow White (2025)
Directed by: Marc Webb
Written by: Erin Cressida Wilson
Starring: Andrew Burnap, Emilia Faucher, Gal Gadot, Rachel Zegler

USA

IN CINEMAS NOW

RUNNING TIME: 109 mins

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera

The kingdom into which princess Snow White is born into is a happy one, ruled by a king and queen who value equality and community, but that changes when her mother dies. The king finds another wife, but he fails to return from a military expedition and this Evil Queen rises to power, bringing darkness to a land where people are either left destitute due to heavy taxation or conscripted into the royal guard, while she makes daily trips to her Magic Mirror to enjoy her vanity, being told that she’s “the fairest one of all.” She also keeps Snow White imprisoned in her castle, making sure the public doesn’t see her again. When a thief, Jonathan, encourages Snow White to escape, and the Mirror changes her tune, the Evil Queen sends a Huntsman to kill her, but Snow White finds her way to a team of jewel-mining dwarves and begins to feel safe….

Well it’s finally here, after all the controversies that have taken place during the long and delayed production of Disney’s latest live-action remake of one of their animated movies, this one being the one that started it all in terms of feature length productions, and which actually saved Disney from bankruptcy, which is perhaps ironic seeing as this one is well on its way to becoming a huge flop for a studio that’s actually been doing rather poorly of late. And for those of us who dislike what Disney has become, that can’t help but make us smile. Snow White aka Disney’s Snow White but certainly not Snow White And The Seven Dwarves because the “D” word  is now apparently offensive even though it’s fantasy creatures that we’re talking about here, is a very easy film to hate for a number of reasons before one has even seen it, from its dislikeable star to the changes made in plot and characters done for political correctness to the use of CG little people rather than real ones which would have provided acting jobs for seven – and so on. And it’s therefore easy to go into it with a hugely negative mindset which can’t be shaken off even if there are things in the film which actually turn out to be good. This writer did his best not to be like that, and hoped that he’d actually find things to like in it, but there’s no doubt whatsoever, despite those very early Disney plant reviews, that this is indeed an absolute stinker, and maybe it could never have been good, though it’s both too bland and funny in its misguidedness to genuinely hate. It’s just yet another soulless Disney remake [the latest in a list which consists mostly of either the mediocre or the lousy and which at its very worst is the laziest kind of re-do], just far more and quite astonishingly inept.

We open in traditional fashion with a book being opened and us being introduced to the world via a narrator, but unfortunately this narrator goes on for too long while we see just tiny portions of scenes, making one wonder if there was a lot of removed material here. The first groaner literally takes place in the first moment, as we’re shown the baby Snow White while the narrator informs us that her parents called her Snow White because she was born during a snowstorm. Well, I suppose we had to be given some reason as to why this Snow White isn’t – snow white. We see her mother, the queen, fall ill and die. The king hastily remarries, taking a mysterious woman who appeared in the court as his second wife, before leaving to mount a campaign against an imminent threat to the realm’s southern borders. When he fails to return, the new queen usurps the throne, revealing herself as an enchantress whose vanity surpasses her beauty. Under the Evil Queen’s rule, the kingdom goes to shit. Everyone presumes Snow White to be dead, unaware that she’s confined to the palace as a scullery maid. The Queen, fearful that Snow White’s beauty will someday outshine her own, consults a Magic Mirror daily, asking it to name “the fairest one of all.” The Mirror always responds in her favour, pleasing her. And now that bloody narration finally stops. Hurray! We join Snow White catching Jonathan raiding the pantry. When he’s sentenced to be tied to the gates, she frees him and gives him a piece of bread. That same day, the Magic Mirror declares Snow White to be the fairest. Enraged, the Queen orders her Huntsman to kill Snow White and bring her heart back in a jeweled box as proof!

However, the Huntsman can’t bring himself to fulfill the task; instead, he warns Snow White of the Queen’s intentions. At his urging, Snow White flees deep into the forest. Her ordeal there, so well done in 1937, isn’t bad – and indeed the film hasn’t been too bad for a short while, but now it really sinks with the arrival of the – well, initially Magical Creatures but now nameless, but I’m of course going to call them by their original name. These CG dwarves are introduced in an actually really good scene, a slightly different version of the famous “Heigh Ho” song playing over the Dwarves having fun all over a huge mine. Well – it would be a really good scene it it wasn’t for the dwarves themselves, who really are “uncanny valley” indeed. Despite Doc, Grumpy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Happy, and Dopey all displaying almost the same characteristics of their namesakes from 1937, their hugely unsettling look prevents us from taking them to our hearts. And then – I’m not making this up – Snow White ventures into their house, sleeps in one of their beds, gets up in the morning and, this being something that the script clearly supports, orders them to do jobs while she does basically nothing – which of course the dwarves all accept! Well, they obviously know not to mess with a Girl Boss, and I guess that they do repay her near the end where they can’t be bothered to build a coffin for her, just laying her on a slab. The lengthy section involving the dwarves in the original is shortened here, a good thing seeing as their antics here are rarely amusing. Jonathan comes back into the story, a Robin Hood-type character who’s the leader of the same racially diverse group that many of us actually thought were the equivalent to the dwarves a while back.

Despite what we may suspect Jonathan is indeed a love interest for Snow White. In fact – I’m telling the truth here – we even get that non-consensual kiss that horrifies some sensitive types these days! There’s more familiar material than you might expect, though much of this is probably down to the reshoots which partly though not entirely replaced an obviously more revisionist take on the story from screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson whose original screenplay may have been heavily worked on by others. The result is now something which seems confused in its attitude to its source material – should it be celebrating it of subverting it? – as well as incorporating a bit of 2008’s Snow White And The Huntsman, a genuinely good revisionist take of the story. One thing’s for sure though – we’re never allowed to forget that this Snow White is empowered, that she dreams of being in charge, because she never shuts up about it. Rachel Zegler can certainly belt out the musical numbers, but, even if we’re able to appreciate that this Snow White isn’t written as the character we all know, her performance doesn’t present a particular likeable person for our enjoyment, nor does she share chemistry with anybody, especially Andrew Burnup as Jonathan – though to be fair I was sometimes more focused on things like her hair changing in length and even occasionally in style, and occasionally even in the same scene! However, she still fares better than Gal Gadot as the Queen. Considering that she’s playing a character who’s initial incarnation remains a pretty frightening one and was the model for so many that followed, you’d have thought that Gadot would give the part a good go, but I guess that this was beyond her abilities. I think it’s truly decided now – she can’t act.

So many bits are poorly handled, such as the eating of the apple which should be full of tension and fear, and a very half-hearted climax. And just wait until you get to the scene where Snow White gets some soldiers to change sides – it’s hilarious – though maybe not as hilarious as Disney trying so hard not to offend anybody but ending up pleasing very few. Aesthetically things are just odd. Of course CGI is everywhere, which has become so much the case for these films that they should really be considered as “animated” films too, and the gang of animals which forms around Snow White is a rather fun element though I wish we’d had some closeups of their faces, and was “race-swapping” a bluebird for a blackbird a retort for those who complain about such things? The outdoor sets are often peculiar; they’re mostly obviously greenscreen, but have an extremely artificial “real set” look to them even though they don’t quite resemble real sets and therefore don’t allow us to enjoy the cast members being in a real environment. Visually things are often bright and colourful, but sometimes we get that unappealing desaturated look that’s common these days, usually when things are bad though not always, something that’s probably again due to all the changes that were made. It seems that, towards the end, Disney rushed this out, and, knowing that they were aware that they had a turkey on their hands, can we blame them?

There are a fair amount of songs, some playing over reasonable if repetitious choreography. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s offerings are firmly in the Broadway style, and are generally pleasant but forgettable except for perhaps the surprisingly witty “Princess Problems”, a duet which presents Snow White and Jonathan’s differences in outlook and even criticises Snow White a bit. The Queen gets a song here, called “All Is Fair”, but I can’t remember a single bit of it except Gadot being dubbed by somebody who doesn’t sound anything like her. As well as “Heigh Ho” from the original we get “Whistle While You Work” and a bit of “Silly Song” – and was that a portion of “One Day My Prince May Come” in Jeff Morrow’s solid score? “Reasonable”, “decent”, “solid”? These words possibly constitute surprisingly high praise for something I’ve spent probably too long slating, but don’t be fooled into thinking that I’ve suddenly changed my mind about this misbegotten disaster, even if a film who’s essential message is “be kind” must surely have some worth. It really isn’t worth seeing though, and Disney need to rethink their strategy and their attitude – but will they do it?