"Snow White and the Huntsman" (1 Viewer)

Hi Gang!
I just got back from seeing this movie. I was quite optimistic about it. It had a lot going for it in terms of budget and cast. I wasn't too excited about seeing Kristen Stewart as Snow White, but I was willing to give her a chance. I thought that Chris Hemsworth would be great as The Huntsman.
Alas, this was not a good movie. It was a tough 127min to sit through. It started off reasonably, but just got more and more boring as the 2 hours went on. There was little to no character development in ANY of the characters. This results in my not really caring about the characters or their peril.
There was little to no chemistry between any of them either. When a romantic theme developed, it felt so tacked on and awkward. The dwarves should have been a rousing, entertaining lot...but even they fell flat. Again, you don't get the chance to know much or anything about them so it is hard to really get attached to them.
Then we have Charlize Theron. An actress I have so much respect for. I think she is one of the top actresses in Hollywood right now. But not in this film. The blame HAS to be on the director. He has her SO over the top it seems like she is in a high school play.
The editing had its issues as well, with jolting cuts that left me confused as to what just happened.
The special effects go from really impressive to looking very dated. It is 2012 now...animated animals etc. need to look a lot better than they do here. They all stand out as being CLEARLY CGI and seeing them took me out of the movie.
The climactic battles also just fell flat. We have seen it all before and done better. The shots seem to try and be showing us "wow" events of archers raining arrows down and trebuchets firing into columns of horses...but again...I have seen it done so often now that it no longer is all that interesting. This is especially true since I have no attachment to the characters.
The ending was so lackluster. I wont spoil it here (not that is really anything to spoil) but it is such a dull climax. It tries for a Star Wars style ending, but again it felt awkward. Heck, even the characters in the movie looked like they were uncomfortable in the scene.
Overall, I would have to give this a 4/10.

I couldn't agree more. However I think you are too nice in your rating lol. The movie was flat out horrible. CT pretty much screamed all her lines and the speech that KS gave was just flat out embarrassing to listen to let alone watch.
2/10
Horrible. Not even the music was redeeming in this one

Yeah Rhett, you are probably closer to the truth. I was trying to be kind.
The more I think of this movie, the more things I think of that made no sense.
Snow White recites the Lord's Prayer. Huh? Christianity exists in this world?
Snow White, who has been locked in a single room for 10 years or so, is in perfect shape and can run and fight.
Snow White is a mouth-breather. Sorry to nit-pick, but Kristen always standing around with her mouth open really got annoying.
The Queen's brother. Oh man...they could have picked any number of better actors for this. He was not scary or sympathetic. He was just dull and odd looking. Oh...and then they just HAD to throw in:
Or how about:
Grrr...now I am on a rant...
I checked at IMDB to see what others were saying about this film. Some are just RAVING about it! They rate it a 10/10. Now, I know I shouldnt be surprised at what the masses will enjoy, but COME ON people! Have SOME level of discernment about a rotten movie. 10/10...really? THIS is the best movie you have ever seen? Gah! Now I'm raging...

Now, I got to see this film.







Crawdaddy

I'm actually looking forward to this one. Roger Ebert seemed to really enjoy it.
It can't be any more boring than MIRROR MIRROR.

@Scott...
Excatly. The whole brother thing. Ugh. There is so much to me anyways that is wrong with this film. Horrible.
I can say I did like the dwarfs however even some of there scenes were very trite.
Like you I could go on and on. Yup very disappointed in the film.

I'll be seeing this film in an hour, something tells me I'm going to like it more than those that posted in this thread.






Crawdaddy

I think there's a decent 105 minute cut of this film in what was shown in the 127 minute theatrical cut, but the pacing is not good, and consequentially the script needed to be tightened up as well. There are elements of the film harkening back to Ridley Scott's treatment of Robin Hood, keeping it very "real" and earthy for its time period, but there are also the fantastical elements that feel awkwardly shoehorned into the film, and not properly explained. But in saying that, I did find some of the fantastical elements in the middle section of the film to be well-lit and nice to look at from a film-making perspective.
Charlize Theron as the evil queen becomes quite shrill and one-note as the film wore on in her quest to hold on to her immortality. Kristen Stewart was an odd choice for Snow White visually, but it's not like she can't act, it's that she might have been poorly cast for this particular role. I will note that for a girl who'd been confined for most of her childhood and teen years, Snow White was in remarkable shape, cardiovascular-wise. Heh. That's just poor attention to detail in the script department. Chris Hemsworth is okay as the Huntsman, though his backstory doesn't garner as much emotional heft as his motivation would need to engage in the hunt for Snow White on behalf of the evil queen. Since I had no idea who was cast as the dwarves, I was pleasantly surprised, though they were also short-changed in the characterization department. So, if you squander so much running time without any meaningful characterization on the screen, they should have shortened up the film. I think the director, Rupert Sanders, didn't quite have enough of a handle on the inter-personal material to craft an engrossing, grimmer, and grittier re-telling of the Snow White story.
I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-. (perhaps because I give it props for not looking like it was shot on a sound stage like "Mirror, Mirror" did.)

It was entertaining to me, but I agree it could've been much better with a tighten up script. The problem with Theron's performance is in the script as it should have been some black humor lines with her to offset her one note evil persona. A good villian needs to be fear, but also be funny at times with their evil doings. I'll give the film a B- too. It might have been higher if they cast somebody else as Snow White. I just don't like Stewart as I find her unappealing as a leading lady.







Crawdaddy

I just cannot buy that Kristin Stewart is supposed to be "the fairest of them all." Very poor casting.

Are people down on her because she is a bad actress, ugly or just because she starred in the TWILIGHT series? So far I have heard very little positive about her.

Originally Posted by Edwin-S /t/321187/snow-white-and-the-huntsman#post_3934091
Are people down on her because she is a bad actress, ugly or just because she starred in the TWILIGHT series? So far I have heard very little positive about her.

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I never seen any of the Twilight films so I'm just going by her looks that besides her eyes, I don't find her that appealing sexually. Now, you can be an unattractive leading woman like Bette Davis, but one thing she did had was a level of sexual appeal. There are othe examples too.

Edwin-S said:

Are people down on her because she is a bad actress, ugly or just because she starred in the TWILIGHT series? So far I have heard very little positive about her.

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I thought she was excellent in Adventureland and The Runaways but then I saw the first three Twilight movies and realized that she doesn't have alot of range. She has the same mannerisms and plays emotions in the same way in everything I've seen her in. I still like her performances in Adventureland and The Runaways though.

TravisR said:

I thought she was excellent in Adventureland and The Runaways but then I saw the first three Twilight movies and realized that she doesn't have alot of range. She has the same mannerisms and plays emotions in the same way in everything I've seen her in. I still like her performances in Adventureland and The Runaways though.

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Goes to show how much I pay attention to actors and actresses in films. I didn't realize she had a lead part in Adventureland until you mentioned it. I saw that film quite awhile ago and mostly what I remember is that it was far less funny than the original trailer made it out to be. It played more like a drama than a comedy. If I remember correctly, her character seemed to almost be in a state of depression most of the time. In that film, the actor that was most memorable was the theme park manager (owner). Not a bad film in its own right, but if she plays all her characters like she did in Adventureland then I could understand why she may not appeal to a lot of people as an actress.

Saw this yesterday. Thought it was 15-20m too long.

While I cringe at the thought of the Twilight films, I have no preconceived dislike for Stewart but I thought she was dreadful in this. One facial expression the entire movie. I don't think her eyebrows moved once. To me, Snow White should be the complete opposite of the evil queen. She should light up the room when she enters. People should be drawn to her. But here she had no personality. There's a moment when she sits down next to a child and admires her dolls. I saw no joy there, no bonding.

One other thing I disliked, unrelated to Stewart was

... the friendzoning of Matthew, her childhood friend. It was clear he always loved her but it was the kiss of the huntsman which brought her back. And I never once saw any unbridled longing on either of their parts

TravisR said:

I thought she was excellent in Adventureland and The Runaways but then I saw the first three Twilight movies and realized that she doesn't have alot of range. She has the same mannerisms and plays emotions in the same way in everything I've seen her in. I still like her performances in Adventureland and The Runaways though.

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I liked her in Runaways also. I haven't seen Adventureland so I can't comment on that. Aside from the two movies mentioned, she seems to be a one trick pony for the three Twilight movies and now this one.

Rhett_Y said:

Not even the music was redeeming in this one

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I haven't seen the movie but I have the soundtrack (I like James Newton Howard) and I'm enjoying the score so far. The action cues are typical action music we get these day, nothing really special but, the quite moments of the score and the main them are beautiful IMO. Maybe the final mix doesn't represent the score that good, which is all to common these days (Hollywood has this fear that if young kids hear an orchestra they will run away from the theater or at least it feels that way at times).
Don't know if I'll see the movie but I thought the score was an enjoyable listen by itself.

Chris Will said:

I haven't seen the movie but I have the soundtrack (I like James Newton Howard) and I'm enjoying the score so far. The action cues are typical action music we get these day, nothing really special but, the quite moments of the score and the main them are beautiful IMO. Maybe the final mix doesn't represent the score that good, which is all to common these days (Hollywood has this fear that if young kids hear an orchestra they will run away from the theater or at least it feels that way at times).
Don't know if I'll see the movie but I thought the score was an enjoyable listen by itself.

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I like James also. I have a couple of his scores, Snow Falling on Cedars and his collaboration with Hans on the Batman scores are some of my favorites. I did like the music in the trailer but I have come to find out that isn't James. I haven't listened to the score by itself. I may have been turned off from the movie that it tainted my view of the music also. I will give it a second listen without the movie!

OK, I finally caught up with this one and thought it was incredibly bland for an "action" picture. The look of the thing was terrific but there just wasn't any meat on the bone and in the end it was quite shallow, boring and too long but this here is something most of these movies are.
Stewart showed great range in THE RUNAWAYS and I thought she was good as that character in TWILIGHT but Snow White doesn't need to be this bland, dark and boring. I don't think she could lead an ant colony let alone a kingdom or leading a group of men into battle. I didn't buy her at all in this role.
Theron is someone I've always enjoyed but she's bad here. Really bad. I'm not sure what the point of her SCREAMING non-stop but it was very annoying after a while.
Hemsworth had the weakest character of the bunch but I thought he did the best job acting and was the only interesting thing. This is the fourth film I've seen him in this year (I just caught up with THOR) and I hope his career can take off on its own.
:star::star: (out of 4)
With that said, this was slightly better than MIRROR MIRROR but it's funny to see two Oscar-winning actresses screw up a part like this. I watched GRIMM'S SNOW WHITE, one of the direct-to-DVD versions that was released this year and it featured Jane March (COLOR OF NIGHT, THE LOVER) playing the Queen and she was SOOOOOO much better. It's a shame the movie was so bad but I think her performance could have really helped both of these Hollywood versions.

Saw this today - total snoozer. Too long, too dull, too glum and mopey. There's no excitement or enjoyment here - frickin' "Se7en" had more laughs!
And it never answers the question it posits: why the heck DIDN'T Ravenna just kill Snow as a kid??? Why lock her up for all eternity?