Snow White and the Huntsman - Part 1

[John Locke]

Oh I wasn't commenting about her acting in the movie. I was being a smartass towards kickass because I can't stand that exaggeration when people say "everyone" was laughing or booing in a theater.

What if they say everyone was enjoying the movie? Do you not like that too?

 

[Figs]

What if they say everyone was enjoying the movie? Do you not like that too?

Yup. Door swings both ways on this one. It's just a ridiculous statement.

 

[bullets]

Its just a general consensus, everyone does it all the time. What might be true for one screening isn't for another.

That's part of the reason I usually see a film on opening night. It just seems like more people are into it and enjoying themselves. I like watching it with a lively crowd and being able to gauge most of their reactions.

 

[spider-neil]

That's part of the reason I usually see a film on opening night. It just seems like more people are into it and enjoying themselves. I like watching it with a lively crowd and being able to gauge most of their reactions.

I'm the complete opposite, I chose times that are more likely to have less viewers, like Sunday afternoon.

 

[Liam_H]

People can certainly be at annoying sometimes but you don't like experiencing the movie with a large crowd?

 

[Schlosser85]

I prefer it with a smaller crowd.

 

[DACrowe]

So, saw the movie. My thoughts:

It was a visually stunning film. The director has a history of music videos and the imagery showed this. Everything looked great. I was particularly fond of the scene that was very Disney-esqque of the animals leading Snow White to the unic....err white deer that she touches before it is shot and hurt by the forces of darkness (coughLegendcough). It was the one point where the movie really sucked you into the visual feast they were going for. In fact, even though it certainly pulls from many films and media quite blatantly (LOTR battles, Legend nature visuals, Neverending Story bog-eating horses, Game of Thrones royal incest, etc. etc.) it works well in creating its own distinct world that is at least pretty to look at.

However, the problem is there is nothing below that surface. The plot of this movie is paper thin and despite having the rich heritage of the Snow White myth and the Brothers Grimm in particular to pull from, they choose to just go through the motions of Hollywood committee writing. She's the chosen one, blah blah, the Huntsman falls in love with her even though they have about five lines blah blah, half an hour is them talking for 20-second pitches between action scenes, etc. etc. Apparently all it took to defeat the Queen is to sneak dwarves through the sewers to open the gates? Did they really need Snow White for that?

Charlize Theron is a lot of fun to watch. However, she is not allowed to fully ham it up and devour the screen with her character. Despite dominating the first 15 minutes of the movie (the best part of it), once Snow White escapes she just mopes around one room in her castle with varying degrees of old-age make-up and pain on her face. Then Snow White comes and fights her. Not a whole lot to do.

Chris Hemsworth plays the burly hero who swings the axe. He swings the axe well and beyond giving Snow White the fabled kiss (as opposed to the prince), that's all that's asked of him. And swing that axe well, he did.

I'm just going to be honest Kristen Stewart was terribly miscast in this movie. I don't think she's a bad actress and I in fact liked her in Adventureland, Into the Wild, and The Runaways. However, her being Snow White always seemed odd and proved to be worse. Let's just ignore that she's supposedly more beautiful in this story than Charlize Theron (when she's obviously not), but her entire presence is a blank slate. Granted, much of that has to do with the paper thin script and a director who is more interested in visuals than pacing or storytelling. Still, Hemsworth is able to muddle through to positive results, same with the all-star Seven (Eight?) Dwarves. And Theron is able to turn her underdeveloped role into a scene-stealer. But Stewart as Snow White, much less a heroic Snow White who leads knights into battle and charges with all the St. Crispin's Day trappings that go along with it, just doesn't work. She's expresionless. She has no chemistry with Hemsworth or the prince. It just doesn't work.

The movie made a slick trailer, but it's as rotten as Snow White's ill-fated apple.

Oh well.

Bump for jump.

 

[spider-neil]

People can certainly be at annoying sometimes but you don't like experiencing the movie with a large crowd?

Nope.

 

[spider-neil]

If you are talking about economy of writing and characters, can someone give me a one good reason why the prince and huntsman couldn't have been the same character?

 

[Liam_H]

Snow White = Bella

Huntsman = Edward

Prince = Jacob

 

[Jordacar]

Snow White = Bella

Huntsman = Edward

Prince = Jacob

How so?

 

[kickass]

Let me detail further what I said in the previous page that got some of you riled up.

When I said "Everyone in my theater laughed at her performance", it does not mean all 200 or so people (it was a soldout showing and some people couldn't even get seats) were actually laughing. Maybe about 150 out of 200 were laughing. Does that put you at ease? I had more people laugh at this in my viewing than Mirror, Mirror.............which is a comedy.

Yes, Chris Hemsworth was just "serviceable" (as you people keep saying on here, which really just means not bad enough to be terrible but not good either) as the Huntsman, but a lot of posters here need to step off this "But omg he's Thor and Thor's really cool and powerful and everyone likes him right now!!!11" biased mindset and just see things for what they really are. I don't care who he played in another film. I'm only judging him for what he did here. I could hardly understand what he said most of the time. His performance felt very lazy and he sounded as if he was going to fall asleep when he was narrating the beginning. Such awful dialogue. They have no business pitching a sequel or franchise for such an irrelevant, stale character.

Charlize was terrible. I kept waiting for her to break out into laughter because she kept pulling me right out of the film. I understand the desire to go all out and be big and over the top in this genre, but there are some over the top performances that are great because they're controlled and the actor uses much better choices. Charlize made choices that just made her look like a 12 year old annoying screaming brat who had no idea what she was doing. She was either screaming or monotone.

You want to talk about an over the top performance that is brilliant in a film of this kind of genre? Frank Langella as Skeletor. He was romantic as much as he was a fireball of rage. He also had great poetic dialogue. He screams, he whispers, he snarls, he romances. A truly great, theatrical performance that steals the entire show. The best part of all? He's wearing a cheap, ugly mask the whole time and it doesn't even matter. He's that good, you look right past it and just accept it.

Anyway, I thought this movie was terrible, and my audience just ripped it apart after the show as everyone was leaving the theater. Next time I'll go around and get everyone's names and do a poll if we want to get specific.

 

[bullets]

Snow White = Bella

Huntsman = Edward

Prince = Jacob

Snow White= Jean Grey
Hunstman= Wolverine
Prince=Cyclops

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Kickass

I thought Hemsworth was more than serviceable and its nothing to do with him being Thor, I just thought he was really good in the movie. I also thought Theron was brilliant and Stewart was good, we obviously have different opinions on the movie but I personally dont see how you could call anyone in the movie terrible.

 

[Asr]

If you are talking about economy of writing and characters, can someone give me a one good reason why the prince and huntsman couldn't have been the same character?

That really bugged me too and just reeked of sloppy writing. The trailers sort of indirectly played up Hemsworth as the love interest for the princess but throughout most of the movie he barely cared about her at all and his ending motivation to even kiss her was so contrived. The prince, on the other hand, had a lot more motivation to care about the princess that went back to his boyhood, but unfortunately the writer didn't give his character any pay-off whatsoever. It was ultra-lame. I would've preferred a movie where the huntsman died an honorable death defending the princess, leaving the princess and prince together.

 

[Erzengel]

Snow White= Jean Grey
Hunstman= Wolverine
Prince=Cyclops

I coined this years ago calling it the Wolverine syndrome. Girl passes up good guy for more popular bad guy.

I knew people who didn't know anything about X-Men and thought Jean would have been better with Wolverine. Same thing with Pirates, the forced relationship between Elizabeth and Sparrow.

 

[DACrowe]

Snow White= Jean Grey
Hunstman= Wolverine
Prince=Cyclops

Oh I want to play.

Snow White=Christin Daaé
Huntsman=The Phantom
Prince=Raoul

Snow White=Scarlett O'Hara
Huntsman=Rhett Butler
Prince=Ashley Wilkes

Snow White=Juliet
Huntsman=Romeo
Prince=Paris

It's almost as if romantic triangles have been around for thousands of years....nah, that's just crazy.

Seriously though, I do feel like the romantic triangle in SWATH was put there simply because it's popular right now (Twilight, Hunger Games). It just seems a lot like Twilight because Stewart has the same blank expression and the triangle was woefully underdeveloped in both films.

 

[bullets]

I coined this years ago calling it the Wolverine syndrome. Girl passes up good guy for more popular bad guy.

I knew people who didn't know anything about X-Men and thought Jean would have been better with Wolverine. Same thing with Pirates, the forced relationship between Elizabeth and Sparrow.

It usually works better when the princess in these tales are being forced into a marriage with some jerk. Then some nice guy will come along and save her. Instead a nice guy is present in the story and gets made out to look less suitable so a new 'wolverine' can come along.

I'm not a fan of love triangles in these sort of stories and this one went undeveloped. If they aren't going to explore that in future sequels his character seems useless and could of been merged with The Hunstmen.

 

[DACrowe]

I think the most interesting love triangles is when both seem like a good choice or the one who clearly is going to lose (let's say The Phantom or Quisomoto) is tragically sympathetic to the audience or reader. The kind where there is something bittersweet about it. Or everyone loses like GWTW for example. Nobody keeps Scarlett in that.

 

[Bruce Malone]

I don't know if this has been brought up in the thread but what do you guys think of the dwarf protests?

On the one hand the filmakers have the right to cast who they like in whatever roles on the other hand. These fantasy roles are some of the only roles dwarf actors can get and it is dealing with their lively hoods.

 

[Dugath]

Was not bad for entertainment.

Only two issues I had Snow white was obviously not "fairer" But I get that they were talking about inner beauty.. but still..

Also I just do not think a little girl who was locked up in a tower until she was 18 would have the social development to interact with Adults on an Adult level.

Charlize is amazing to look at and personally I loved her performance.

 

[Drz]

My childish rant!

Rupert Sander’s directorial debut from Halo commercials to big budget summer blockbusters comes with a disappointment for me, but perhaps i should be the one to blame for having any sort of expectations for this film, as my snob friend liked it for its awfulness and my two casual friends found it entertaining, why was i the only one disappointed?


To start off, I really have an issue towards the director Sanders with how he wished both actresses Kristen Stewart & Charlize Theron to perform, now Kristen Stewart plays Snow White & Charlize Theron is the evil Queen Ravenna. Now what is the most common critique towards Kristen? That she has no expressions and can’t act? These critics, especially from male audience comes from the fact people have watched awful movies, but do we care for those? Nah, if you’ve seen movies like Runaways or Adventureland, you too would know this woman can act, so why would Sander’s wish to have Kristen perform her pale expressionless act as Snow White? She has no charisma, but she is the warrior princess we’re supposed to root for. Charlize as Ravenna really gets her mouth wide and open as she screams the most ridiculous lines in the most ridiculous ways, her performance as this desperate aging woman who needs more youthful girls to sustain her own beauty, just comes off as ridiculous, she has no charisma or presence to make her a formidable villain, and the final fight the two females have just defines the word anti-climactic.


Chris Hemswoth, the 2nd lead of the film plays the Huntsman, his performance is his Australian drunktard, you might understand what I mean by comparing his acting towards his performance as a thuggish Thor who just wanted more beer and fight in wars, that’s how he comes off here, pulling his deep voice as the narrator as well at the start alongside giving a few “emotional” scenes, but really he’s just doing his thug-Thor performance, he lacks presence or strong charisma that he basks in Cabin in the Woods, Thor & Avengers. As you can probably see from my ranting, the fact that these actors we’re given poor directions, it also makes it harder for the audience members to give a rat’s ass what is happening around, this is immensely important and yet, here we have this fantasy action movie trying it’s best Lord of the Rings imitation, but lacking any sort of emotional punch to make anyone fist pump to cheer for Snow White and the Huntsman.


So the 2nd biggest problem I had with this film was its story pacing. Now this is so bad, it becomes actually quite entertaining, this is very evident in two particular scenes where the story flow is so ridiculous, it’s funny, I guess you can consider these minor spoilers, but it’s more about me talking locations than reveal important plot points: Snow White gets drugged in the Dark Forest, so the movie shwos how Ravenna wanting Snow White captured finds the perfect tracker, the Huntsman and thus the Huntsman practically gets to Snow White pretty much immediately, was she truly drugged that long? How did she last so long? Was the forest actually just really that close? Another scene is the Huntsman leaving this female hunter village camp, but while believing the Huntsman had already traveled far away, he was no more than just a few minutes away from the village as they become attacked by Ravenna’s men, it’s just really ridiculous how the story flows some plot points together.


That’s really my cringes to it, the story flow is fast to uttermost ridiculous at times, the actors don’t give an emotional performance for me to either despise the villainess or root the heroes, but I do feel like there is credit to be given to the special effects, environment and costumes department. I was interested in the movie the moment I saw Snow White in battle armor, she looked cool as hell, Ravenna looks outstandingly evil and the environment riches from dark bloomy forests to beautifully snowy mountain tops to medieval kingdoms. It’s all very pretty and visually pleasing to look at.


Oh, and one more cute thing I liked we’re the 7 Dwarves of course, they are of course all comic relief more or less, and the girls laugh at them, but having Ian McShane, Nick Frost & Bob Hoskins as Dwarves is really pop culture nerd cool for me.


Overall as you might have guessed from my poor rant, this movie simply isn’t worth seeing.

 

[Harry_Lime02]

I thought the visuals were really good, it just lagged a bit at times and there were too many characters.

 

[Silvermoon]

Just got back from it. I enjoyed it. I was expecting a darker version of a classic fairy tale and that's what I got. I do think it could've been tightened up in places, but that didn't bother me as much as it did my sister (and at the same time maybe expanded a bit in others, i.e. it would've been nice to see a bit more of the Huntsman training Snow to fight - instead of him just giving her that one tip). I do think Hemsworth and Theron stole the show, but I don't think Kristen did as bad as some have said.

I'd see it in the theater again if I get a chance (if only to not have the guy that was near my mom that sounded like he was coughing up a lung or something )

Will definitely buy it on Blu-Ray/DVD.

 

[Call Me Darkman]

All flaws aside, I loved the visuals and music. So, I still managed to find some entertainment value in the movie. kickass brought up Frank Langella's Skeletor, but keep in mind that's the ONLY good thing about that terrible He-Man movie. So, just how he found "something good" in a bad movie, I did the same. Oh, and the Florence and the Machine song is fantastic.