(This post contains spoilers for “Snow White and the Huntsman”)
When I watched “Snow White and the Huntsman” years ago, I thought it was so bad it didn’t deserve to have a sequel. I was wrong.
“The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” released April 22, was a spin-off of “Snow White and the Huntsman,” and it was just about as bad, if not worse, than the original.
Seven years after the the events of “Snow White and the Huntsman,” Eric the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) discovered that the “late” Queen Ravenna’s (Charlize Theron) Magic Mirror was taken from Snow White’s kingdom. Accompanied by two dwarfs and the woman he used to love, he embarked on a quest to reclaim the mirror before the Ice Queen Freya (Emily Blunt) got it to grow her dark power.
This film had a rather confusing plot and felt like a mashup of just about every fantasy trope in existence. Sure it had familiar characters like the Huntsman, Queen Ravenna, and the dwarfs. However, it had barely any connections with Snow White. Freya resembled Elsa from “Frozen,” and the battle scenes had the feel of “Game of Thrones.” The jokes in the movie seemed to be unnecessary and didn’t provoke any laughs in the audience.
Character development was sorely lacking. The movie told the backstory of the Huntsman. However, the backstory didn’t serve the purpose of defining the Huntsman as who he is. His love story with Sara (Jessica Chastain) seemed to come from nowhere and wasn’t convincing at all. The “Ice Queen” also had a lot of conflicting personalities.
Besides that, the acting was also disappointing, especially the Huntsman. True, Chris Hemsworth was sexy as usual, but he seemed to treat this movie like another Marvel Cinematic Universe production. His “Huntsman” in this film was reminiscent of his past role as Thor and not much like a stoic warrior.
Overall, the film was watchable if you’re looking for a quick, dark action fairy tale, but not if you’re here for a good story and interesting characters.
[star rating=”2″]
