THE STORY – A princess joins forces with Seven Dwarfs to liberate her kingdom from her cruel stepmother, the Evil Queen.
THE CAST – Rachel Zegler, Andrew Burnap, Gal Gadot, Ansu Kabia, Patrick Page, Andrew Barth Feldman, Tituss Burgess, Martin Klebba, Jason Kravits, George Salazar, Jeremy Swift & Andy Grotelueschen
THE TEAM – Marc Webb (Director) & Erin Cressida Wilson (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 95 Minutes
This moment has been an inevitability in the making. As soon as Disney discovered that taking their classic animated movies and remaking them into a live-action format was a relatively easy way to make vast amounts of profit, no movie from their past would remain untouched. No property is too sacred or story too precious for this corporation to endlessly mine to mass market familiar IP to the public. Strangely, it’s taken this long for “Snow White” to get that treatment. Maybe it, in a way, is an effort to bring a new version under the Disney banner. It would almost seem like the time to end this tiresome crusade, completing the full circle that has now traveled back to the very first entry that premiered nearly 90 years ago. It’s hard to see this practice coming to a full stop, but one may yearn for it if results continue to be as dull and lackluster as this outing turns out to be.
There may be several versions of Snow White laid about, but this one is taking direct inspiration from the 1937 classic “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The story’s bones are the same, with the young princess drawing the ire of her wicked stepmother and ruling queen. Rachel Zegler takes on the titular role, with Gal Gadot as the sneering villain. A bit more backstory is now given to the queen’s role as a usurper, manipulating the kingdom’s masses by depriving them of resources she hordes to indulge her vanity. It’s that quality that consumes her, and after her magic mirror proclaims she is no longer the fairest in the land, she orders Snow White to be killed. But of course, the young woman escapes into the dark forest and happens across the septet of small miners. In this story, though, Snow White not only wants to survive the clutches of the horrendous monarch but also rediscover the value of hope to her people that has been lost. And she might even find a personal passion of her own along the way.
It’s an immense blessing that the film can count on Zegler to deliver a committed performance for such uninspired material. She has certainly given stronger work in the past, but there is something to be said about the way she is dedicated to portraying this character to the fullest. The attempts to make Snow White a more well-rounded figure are familiar tropes seen before, fleshing out her tragic backstory and trying to give her stronger agency and motivation. She completely recognizes the property she’s in and gives an earnest performance in that register. She finds the emotional core when delivering her “I Want” number, one of many original songs written for the film, and she finds some nice banter with all her co-stars, be they real or imaginary creatures. Even when forced to deliver a clunker of a line, Zegler finds a way to rise above it or, at the very least, make the foundation she’s working with seem more tolerable.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Gadot. To be fair, she is trying for something here. You can tell that she wants to infuse a heavy dose of camp into this character, whether through her menacing glares or histrionic outbursts. However, she struggles to find the right balance to indulge in that sensibility that also doesn’t undercut the legitimate villainy. She has her own musical number, which on its own is a rather fun and gaudy display, but it also feels silly that it tonally robs the character of the danger. Gadot just isn’t a performer with the capability to navigate the terrain that can be both threatening and endearing. Instead, she provides a mundane antagonist who can’t avoid some cringy scenes that try to demonstrate bigger acting choices that don’t land, not helped at all by a bland character arc leading to a muted climax.
These are two roles from the original incarnation that have been expanded and most assuredly applied to the other members of this ensemble. The handsome prince who provides true love’s kiss is instead transformed into a meager peasant named Jonathan, played by Andrew Burnap, who is somehow both a rebellious thief with a distaste for the ruling class but also a loyalist to Snow White’s father and a believer in good monarchs. It’s an odd contradiction, and Burnap’s performance doesn’t excite all that much either. There is some nice chemistry shared with Zegler, and he does manage to land some of the zingers well, but the role is still bland, and his performance often matches that energy.
Movies on this scale have a reputation for grabbing newer directors who have just achieved breakout success on the independent cinema landscape and then swallowing them up into the corporate machine that drains most of their creativity. Marc Webb has already been thrown into this gauntlet once before after making the Tom Holland “Spider-Man” films, but this feels like an even less inspired effort. Almost every musical number is flatly executed, with the camera barely moving and the actors stilted within the frame. The pacing between these scenes is brutally lethargic, fully acknowledging the padding this narrative has undergone. Ironically, for as many new scenes have been added, the only sequences with any life to them are ones that aim to directly recreate the original film. The “Heigh-Ho” number, in particular, has some impressive production design that showcases the massive mines. But these instances are few and far between, and the filmmaking is a sluggish and uninspired effort.
If there’s one surprising aspect to the storytelling, it would be that the dwarfs themselves are not as grating as one would imagine. They’re not even technically dwarfs, some sort of magical creatures that are all created using CGI effects. Yet, even though there’s only so much personality you can glean from seven different individuals, they manage to make an impression. Some of it is as easy as giving Dopey more human facial figures, which telegraphs to the audience he’s the one who’s about to get the most emotional scrutiny. But Grumpy’s acerbic retorts can always elicit a chuckle, and Doc also gets in a few stray observations that are fun. These characters don’t even get title billing like they did before, and the expanded scope may be used to justify that. But in a film shockingly devoid of much levity, it was a pleasant surprise that such aspects were found here.
“Snow White” certainly takes the same route that all the previous live-action remakes have before. They keep the structure of the original story and build it out by adding more backstories, characters, and songs. Here, they are contributed by Pasek and Paul, which would explain why these numbers don’t mesh well together with the old-timey tunes of the original production and sound more like their typical style of hollow Broadway pop. The crafts aren’t that amazing either, though Sandy Powell will always find some flamboyant threads to display in her costume design. There are entertaining elements scattered throughout, and bless Zegler for being able to carry what she can. Ultimately, it’s hard not to read this as another cynical cash grab that does little to transform the source material in a substantive enough manner to feel justified. Disney will keep this practice for as long as it makes them tons of cash. This outing may not be the worst production, but it still leaves a lot to be desired.
