Starring Rachel Ziegler, Gail Godot, Andrew Burnap, and Jeremy Swift
Directed by Marc Webb
Music and Lyrics by various
I've been looking forward to this movie, if only to see what Disney would do with it. I have a mixed track record with Disney's remakes. There's a few I found to be genuinely enjoyable in their own right, but most were mediocre or added nothing to the original story. This one had strikes against it from the outset. It's remaking Disney's very first animated film, its female leads got into trouble for ragging on the film and firing off their political opinions before the movie's opening, and the depiction of the dwarfs as more cartoonish than the rest of the cast came under fire from real people with dwarfism. After all that, how does the actual movie come off? Let's begin, as so many Disney movies do, with a lavishly-decorated storybook...and a couple of forest animals...and find out...
The Story: Snow White (Ziegler) once lived happily in a prosperous mining and farming kingdom with her beloved parents. After her mother (Lorena Andrea) dies, her father the King (Hadley Fraser) marries a woman (Godot) who is outwardly gorgeous, but is in reality cold and cruel. She forces the farmers to become soldiers and locks Snow White in the castle. Snow White, however, remains kind and gentle no matter what. She even releases a thief (Burnap) who stole potatoes from the queen.
Incensed with that incident and with her Magic Mirror's (Patrick Page) insistence that Snow White is now fairer than she, the Queen orders her Huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to kill her. He can't do it and sends her into the woods instead. She ends up at the home of seven dwarfs who work in the nearby mines. They distrust her at first, but finally let her stay. Even after she leaves, she encounters Johnathan, the thief she released at the castle, who is the head of the bandits who are fighting in the king's name. Johnathan doesn't believe she can make things better, but Snow knows that the best way to fight evil is to work together...and prove that there's more to being "fair" and being a good ruler than looking pretty for a mirror.
The Song and Dance: For all of the fussing before this came out, I actually ended up enjoying it. At least, it's a lot better than I thought it would be from the reviews. Rachel Ziegler is simply luminous as Snow White, who manages to be both sweet, funny, and infinitely intelligent. She sings beautifully, performs well with the dwarfs, and even pulls off her final confrontation with Godot nicely. I actually like most of the changes to her character and think they work out pretty well, including her desire to follow in her father's footsteps and become a truly fair ruler.
Though Johnathan is basically an imitation Flynn Rider from Tangled, he's also infinitely more interesting than the cardboard prince in the original film. The dwarfs have their funny moments too, especially after they meet Snow White and they're all bickering. And actually, my favorite moment from the film may have been Snow White teaching Dopey to whistle. The CGI works better here, making it all the sweeter when he finally gets the others' attention. Disney spared no expense on the production, either. The costumes and sets are gorgeous, nicely recreating a fairy tale Germany straight out of a Grimm Brothers' story.
The Numbers: We open and close with "Good Things Grow," as the young Snow White (Emilia Faucher) and her parents make apple pies for the entire town and we see how everyone helps and depends on everyone else. Snow White thinks she's "Waiting On a Wish" as she sings to the wishing well on the castle grounds, and later after she frees Johnathan. "Heigh Ho/We Dig" is more elaborate here, as we see how the dwarfs mine the gems they collect under the ground before they march home. The Queen claims that "All Is Fair" to Snow White, and later to the townspeople...fair to her, that is.
"Whistle While You Work" is moved from before the dwarfs arrive to the day after. This time, Snow White manages to get the dwarfs and animals working together to clean up their house in a charming tour-de-force. Johnathan sneers about Snow White's "Princess Problems," and how it's better to live for oneself than hold out for a hope that might not come. "The Silly Song" brings the dwarfs and bandits together for a night of revelry, but it's only heard briefly. Snow and Johnathan wonder what happens when "A Hand Meets a Hand," and people start to look out for one another. "Snow White Returns" in the finale, as the Queen rages that "All Is Fair" and the rest of the kingdom reprises "Good Things Grow."
What I Don't Like: This has the opposite problem from the original film. Now Snow White and her love interest are the interesting characters, and the Queen is the dull one. Godot is neither much of a singer, nor has the required menace to really carry off her role. She comes off as a silly comic book villain, too noble of a warrior to be truly wicked. And yes, the CGI dwarfs do frequently fall into uncanny valley, especially during action sequences or when they're all talking at once. It can be more frightening than funny at times. There's also the waffling on whether the king is dead or not, and the feeling that they just snitched some ideas from the darker live-action Snow White and the Huntsman from 2012 (like Snow White joining bandits and searching for her father) and filtered them through Disney's rosy lens.
The Big Finale: Though not mirror-perfect, this movie does have a lot of fun points, not the least being spot-on performances by Ziegler and Burnap and some great new songs. It's different enough from its predecessor for me to recommend catching it in the theaters with your favorite little princess or bandit, especially if they're already a Disney fan.
Home Media: The soundtrack can currently be found on Amazon Streaming; the physical version won't be out until May 9th. No word yet on when the movie will be on Disney Plus or physical media.
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