Psycho's Movie Reviews #197: Snow White And The Huntsman (2012)

Snow White and the Huntsman is a 2012 American fantasy film based on the German fairy tale "Snow White" compiled by the Brothers Grimm. The film is the directorial debut of Rupert Sanders, with a screenplay by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini, from a screen story by Daugherty. The cast includes Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, and Bob Hoskins in his final film performance. In the film's retelling of the tale, Snow White grows up imprisoned by her evil stepmother, Queen Ravenna, a powerful sorceress. After Snow White escapes into the forest, Ravenna enlists Eric, the Huntsman to capture her, but he becomes her compatriot in a quest to overthrow Ravenna.

Snow White and the Huntsman was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2012 and in the United States on June 1, 2012, by Universal Pictures. It was a success at the box office, earning $396 million worldwide against a $170 million budget. Although critics praised the production design and visual effects, Theron and Hemsworth's performances, and the musical score and action sequences, Stewart and Claflin's performances received mixed reviews, and the screenplay was heavily criticized. The film received two Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Costume Design at the 85th Academy Awards.

A prequel/sequel, titled The Huntsman: Winter's War, directed by the first film's visual effects supervisor Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, was released on April 22, 2016. Hemsworth, Theron, Claflin and Nick Frost reprised their roles and new characters were played by Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain. Stewart did not reprise her role, but appeared in archive footage.

Plot

While admiring a bright red rose blooming during a deep winter, Queen Eleanor of the kingdom of Tabor pricks her finger on one of its thorns. Drops of blood fall onto the snow, and she wishes for a daughter with skin white as snow, lips as red as blood, hair as black as a raven's wings, and a heart as strong as that rose. She gives birth to a daughter, Snow White, but falls ill and dies several years later. After her death, Snow White's father, King Magnus, and his army battle an invading dark army of dark glass soldiers. King Magnus finds a prisoner called Ravenna and, upon rescuing her, becomes enchanted with her beauty and marries her.

Ravenna is in fact a powerful sorceress and the Dark Army's master. On their wedding night, Ravenna confesses there was a king much like Magnus that hurt her and discarded her. She declares she will not be discarded and kills Magnus before taking over the kingdom. Snow White's childhood friend William and his father, Duke Hammond, escape the castle but are unable to rescue her, and she is captured and locked away in a tower for many years.

Tabor and its people deteriorate under Queen Ravenna’s rule. She periodically drains the youth from the kingdom's young women in order to maintain a spell cast over her as a child by her mother, which allows her to keep her youthful beauty. When her stepdaughter Snow White comes of age, she learns from her Magic Mirror that Snow White is destined to destroy her unless she consumes the girl's heart, which will make her immortal. Ravenna orders her brother Finn to bring her Snow White's heart, but Snow White escapes into the Dark Forest, where Ravenna has no power. Ravenna makes a bargain with Eric the Huntsman, a widower and drunkard, to capture Snow White, promising to bring his wife back to life in exchange. The Huntsman tracks down Snow White, but when Finn reveals that Ravenna does not actually have the power to revive the dead, the Huntsman helps Snow White escape. Finn gathers a band of men to find her, and the Duke and William learn that she is alive. William leaves the castle to find her, joining Finn's band as a bowman.

The Huntsman and Snow White leave the Dark Forest, where she saves his life by charming a huge troll that attacks them. They make their way to a fishing village populated by women who have disfigured themselves to make themselves useless to Ravenna. The Huntsman learns Snow White's true identity, and leaves her in the care of the women. He returns when he sees the village being burned down by Finn's men. Snow White and the Huntsman evade them and meet a band of eight dwarfs. The blind dwarf Muir perceives that Snow White is the only person who can defeat Ravenna and end her reign.

As they travel through a fairy sanctuary, they are attacked by Finn and his men. A battle ensues during which Finn, his men, and one of the dwarfs are killed, while William reveals himself and joins the group on their journey to Hammond's castle. Halfway there, Ravenna disguises herself as William and tempts Snow White into eating a poisoned apple. She flees when the Huntsman and William discover her. William kisses Snow White but nothing happens (though no one notices the tear that comes from one of her eyes). Her body is taken to Hammond's castle. The Huntsman professes his regret for not being there to save her, as her heart and strength remind him of his wife, Sara. He kisses her and does not notice a second tear fall from one of her eyes, as his kiss was second of true love needed. Snow White awakens and rallies the Duke's army to mount a siege against Ravenna.

The dwarves infiltrate the castle through the sewers and open the gates, allowing the army inside. Snow White confronts Ravenna, but is overpowered. Ravenna is about to kill her when Snow White uses a move the Huntsman taught her and stabs Ravenna, defeating her for good. The kingdom once again enjoys peace and harmony as Snow White is crowned queen.

Production

Development

Evan Daugherty initially wrote the screenplay in 2003, when he was studying at NYU. At the time reboots of fairy tales were not a popular film genre and according to Daugherty "no one really knew what to do with it". More problems came when the release of Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm (2005) flopped at the box office which caused potential buyers to be hesitant about the script. The script was finally greenlit after the success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Casting Theron and Stewart at Wondercon 2012 in Anaheim, California in March 2012

Film producers considered casting a lesser-known actress for the role of Snow White, with mention of Riley Keough, Felicity Jones, Bella Heathcote, Alicia Vikander, and Rachel Maxwell as possible picks. This idea became less likely as known actresses Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart were later rumoured to be short-listed for the role. On March 4, 2011 co-producer Palak Patel confirmed that Stewart was offered the role. Winona Ryder was initially considered to play Queen Ravenna, before the role went to Charlize Theron. Tom Hardy was supposedly first offered the role of Eric, the Huntsman, but turned down the offer. The role was then apparently offered to Michael Fassbender, and then Johnny Depp, but both claim to have declined it. Viggo Mortensen was said to have been in negotiations with Universal for the part, but supposedly turned down the role, too. It was claimed that Hugh Jackman was offered the role, but that he declined. In 2011, Thor star Chris Hemsworth was eventually cast in the role of the Huntsman.

Filming

Principal photography took place in the United Kingdom. The beach scenes were predominantly filmed in Pembrokeshire, on the Marloes Sands beach near the village of Marloes between September 26 and 29, 2011. Though the beach was not closed to the public during filming, as filming progressed, certain parts were advised to be off limits. A computer-generated castle was set on nearby Gateholm island. A field above the beach was used for production purposes, and a special wooden ramp was built for vehicles and horses to access the beach. Filming also took place at Frensham Small Pond. The film used academic consultants from the University of Chichester and the University of Oxford for back-up research on fairy tales and medieval battles.

Music

James Newton Howard composed the music for the film. The English band Florence and the Machine recorded "Breath of Life" exclusively for the film, which was reportedly inspired by Theron's character Queen Ravenna. Ioanna Gika of Io Echo performed "Gone", a song that is played at Gus's funeral in the film.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film had its premiere on May 14, 2012, at the Empire, Leicester Square, in London. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Region 1 on September 11, 2012, with both the theatrical version (127 minutes) and an extended version (132 minutes) available on both formats. The film was released on the same formats in Region 2 on October 1, 2012.

Snow White and the Huntsman received mixed reviews from critics. The film has a 49% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 238 reviews, with an average rating of 5.60/10. The site's consensus states: "While it offers an appropriately dark take on the fairy tale that inspired it, Snow White & the Huntsman is undone by uneven acting, problematic pacing, and a confused script." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". CinemaScore polls conducted revealed the average grade that filmgoers gave the film was a "B" on an A+ to F scale.

David Edelstein of New York praised the film's revisionist tone and said the film was "strongly influenced by a lot of smart, feminist thinking". Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4. A.O. Scott of The New York Times praised Theron's performance and also wrote, "Though it is an ambitious – at times mesmerizing – application of the latest cinematic technology, the movie tries to recapture some of the menace of the stories that used to be told to scare children rather than console them." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Ravenna hates living in a world where men can feed on women's beauty and then toss them away. She's a fascist of feminism, and Theron's acting has the blood of operatic anger coursing through it." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times said the film is, "an absolute wonder to watch and creates a warrior princess for the ages. But what this revisionist fairy tale does not give us is a passionate love – its kisses are as chaste as the snow is white." Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called it "a visual marvel" while noting that Stewart "morphs convincingly from a skittish girl into a determined warrior princess." MSN news said that Stewart "grows into her character, it seems, and eventually got this reviewer completely on her side." Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune gave the film 4/4 stars. Richard Roeper gave the movie a B+, calling it "Vastly superior to Mirror, Mirror", and praising Theron and Stewart's performances.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said that while the film is "less jokey than the recent Mirror Mirror", "this Twilightified fairytale has the same basic problem," and that, "The result is tangled and overblown." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a slow, boring film that has no charm and is highlighted only by a handful of special effects and Charlize Theron's truly evil queen." Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post also gave the film a negative review: "Overlong, overcrowded, overstimulating and with an over-the-top performance by Charlize Theron as the evil queen Ravenna, the movie is a virtual orchard of toxic excess, starting with the unnecessarily sprawling cast of characters." Lisa Kennedy of the Denver Post gave the film two out of four stars and said, "Only Bob Hoskins as the blind seer Muir comes close to making us care. We can almost glean Snow White's heroic possibilities through his clouded eyes. As much as we'd like to, we certainly can't from Stewart's efforts." Scott Foundas states that "Stewart’s Snow White... pouts her lips, bats her bedroom eyes, and scarcely seems to have more on her mind than who might take her to the senior prom—let alone the destiny of an entire kingdom."

Snow White and the Huntsman earned $155,332,381 in North America, along with $241,260,448 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $396,592,829. In North America, the film earned $1,383,000 from midnight showings. For its opening day, the film topped the box office with $20,468,525. It debuted in first place at the box office during its opening weekend with $56,217,700. It is the seventeenth highest-grossing 2012 film. Outside North America, Snow White and the Huntsman had an opening of $39.3 million, ranking second overall for the weekend behind Men in Black 3; however, it ranked number 1 in 30 countries.

Budget $170 million

Box office $396.6 million

My Review

When I watched the 1937 Disney "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" a few years ago, I was startled to see that the Evil Queen commanded the Huntsman to bring her back the heart of Snow White in a box. Thinking about that, and relating it to the present day requirement so many college students have of acquiring safe spaces to avoid such nasty information, I have to wonder if there will be a clamour to censor those old Walt Disney animated films along with tearing down statues of Confederate Generals. It shouldn't take long, keep your eyes and ears open for it.

Well, there seems to be a preponderance of negative reviews for this film here in the IMDb viewer comments, probably running about ten to one against. Some of the critique is valid, but a lot of them simply parrot a standard line about Kristen Stewart's acting ability, lack of emotion, bad dialog, etc. Personally, I thought the cinematography and costuming brought the formerly animated tale to life in a credible and exciting manner. Charlize Theron's Evil Queen Ravenna was the picture of evil incarnate, while Chris Hemsworth delivered his character, The Huntsman, in a solidly conflicted manner. Of the three principals, I do concede that Snow White was the weakest, and Kristen Stewart would not have been my first choice for the role.

The most intriguing part of the picture for me was that walk through the fairy Land in which the dwarfs accompanied Snow White and The Huntsman. The CGI involved in creating the animal and plant life looked quite extraordinary, and the white hart looked stunning. I didn't realize that the dwarfs themselves were shrunken down versions of established actors, though the resemblance of Beith to Ian McShane made me realize something was up. So that was an interesting element in the picture as well.

I guess what I try to do is find something good to like in just about any picture and this one has it's pluses against all the minuses of the detractors. There's also something to be said about being a contrarian as well, and going against the grain. When I see that virtually everyone is piling on a movie, it suggests an element of group think to me, and I feel a lot of reviewers who might have found something good about the picture wound up going in reverse when it came time to write their comments.

The best things about 'Snow White and the Huntsman' are the production values and Charlize Theron. The film is very beautiful to look at, with luscious but also atmospheric photography, Gothic but also elegant and rustic set and scenery design and lavish costumes (Ravenna's are a knockout). The special effects are mostly fine too. Ravenna is the one character that 'Snow White and the Huntsman' properly tries to develop (and it does so reasonably, but there are parts that could have been elaborated upon more), and Theron positively sinks her teeth into the character, giving a very enjoyably hammy (sometimes), sinister and also tragic interpretation.

James Newton Howard's score complements very well, it's beautifully orchestrated, rousing, elegiac, atmosphere-enhancing and very involving. Hemsworth is appropriately stone-faced and brooding as the Huntsman, displaying charisma and emotion. Sam Claflin does well too, though with an underwritten character.

Was mixed however on the dwarfs and Rupert Sanders' direction. The dwarfs are very enjoyably characterised, with all of them displaying much needed character, humour and charm, more so than their material deserved. Ian McShane is particularly noteworthy. However, they are written in a very glossed over and bland fashion, almost like they were written as an afterthought. The decision to scale down the actors may not work for some people, those who feel that casting real-life dwarfs would have fared better, personally enjoyed the performances but felt it would have been better if Warwick Davis played all of them. Sanders' direction exudes confidence visually, but in the chemistry between actors, direction of some of the actors and direction of the drama he seemed ill at ease.

Besides "Lord of the Rings", the main influences on the film appear to have been the Gothic fairy tales of those two masters of the visual imagination, Burton and Terry Gilliam. Ron Howard's "Willow" may also have been an influence. Like many of Burton's films, this one is visually dark and sombre, but with many imaginative touches. (I particularly liked that Gothic castle towering over the rocky sea-coast). Despite some uneven acting, this is generally a powerful and imaginative film. It was Sanders' first feature film, but he is clearly a director to watch for the future. 8.7/10

{Breath of Life has quickly become one of my favourite Florence + The Machine songs}