Visually stunning but much too somber and bloated for its own good, ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ is the better of the revisionist Snow White flicks of 2012, but it’s still not as good as it could have been. Director Rupert Sanders has a definite style on display, and Charlize Theron seems to relish playing the evil queen, but something just seems to be missing. The performances of Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth are solid, but they just seem a bit off from what the characters should be. I think the main culprit is the script, which doesn’t make enough use of the story for its goals and often seems puzzled as to what should come next. This eventually just becomes a cousin of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ (not a compliment in my eyes, but I know I’m in the minority there). The idea of a revisionist and gritty take on Snow White is often cast aside, and the linking bits to that original fairy tale seem shoehorned in and not organic to the story one bit. The flick is dark, but it seems to be merely for the sake of being so. There’s just too much unevenness here to consider recommending it, but again…few films this year have been as nice to look at as this one.
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