After the Evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) has tricked her way onto the throne and poisoned the land around, the surviving princess Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is imprisoned for the rest of her life. That is until the queen discovers that if she takes Snow White's heart, she will become immortal. But Snow White escapes her clutches and runs into the dark forest, where even the queen can not touch her. Instead the queen hires the services or a ruffian Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to track her down and bring her back. But will the Huntsman do it, or will fate throw them together against the evil queen.
There is a lot about this film that should have been good, but a lot more that significantly lets it down. Since this is one of the new breed of films meant to give a gritty (semi) realistic feel to old fairy tale stories (others include Beastly (2011), Sleeping Beauty (2011) and Jack the Giant slayer) there is no point in comparing this film with its disney predecessor. That being said this film could almost have been released as a stand alone fantasy film and have about the same effect.
Starting with the good points of this film, a particular highlight were the effects: especially those around make-up and magic effects. A lot of detail and thought was put into those effects and it certainly shows in the finished product, nowhere more so in the Dark Forest scenes. The same level of detail was also given to the world of the film: whether it is the castle structures, the fairytale forests or even the armour and costumes of the characters, every level of the films dimension is astounding and detailed on a level unparalleled by most films of the same genre. The cast is sewn with numerous famous faces: the seven dwarves stand out as being bigger stars than most of the main cast.
Unfortunately, that's it for good qualities about this film, it's all down hill from there. There is nothing special about the cinematography or story: exactly what you'd expect from the word go. There are several glaring issue of continuity, not a lot but enough to be noticeable. The relationship between the Huntsman and Snow White seems pretty rushed, almost as though there are several scenes missing that are necessary to explain the story (the same thing happened with Robin Hood (2010) so hopefully an extended version dvd will cover that) but even so it just seems like everything was rushed there. Kristen Stewart does an alright job being Snow White, but the character itself is flawed: her part hasn't been well written and the character goes yoyo's between a kind hearted princess, and a warrior battle maiden in seconds. This is part of the reason why this film would be better as a regular fantasy, not a snow white film.
Good, but not great describes Snow White and the Huntsman pretty accurately.
