SNOW WHITE REVIEW
“Rachel Zegler is truly a revelation in the title role of a movie that has its issues but definitely grows on you.”
Before watching the newest Disney version of Snow White, I was hoping to rewatch the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, produced by Walt Disney all the way back in 1938, because it was a movie that I loved so much as a kid, particularly its songs. That ended up not happening, but I figured I knew the story and movie well enough to not need that rewatch. It turned out I was right.
Directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man), Disney’s new live-action take on the classic animated film stars Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) in the title role, a young princess who end up in the hands of an evil queen (Gal Gadot) who married her father, the king, after her mother dies. This evil queen sends Snow White’s father off to battle to never return, and she immediately imprisons the teen girl and makes her an indentured servant. Snow White manages to escape when the queen assigns a huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to kill her. Although he just can’t muster the courage to kill such a bright flame, she still ends up lost in the woods.
The film remains fairly faithful to Disney’s earlier animated movie, which is both good and bad. Firstly, it’s good, because this is based on a beloved and known story derived from the Brothers Grimm, and you don’t want to get as crazy as previous adaptations have. It’s bad, because you’ll go into the movie pretty much knowing to expect certain beats and moments. In that sense, the weirdest part of the movie is when the seven dwarves first show up, and they seem to be fully created using visual effects, not necessarily using any sort of motion or performance capture. Basically, the dwarves are CG-heavy animation ala the recent The Lion King movies, which does come closer to their look and mannerisms from the earlier Disney movie, which are indeed quite cartoonish, but it’s also quite jarring at first. The various CG critters surrounding Snow White are done infinitely better, and they’ll certainly be more pleasing to the kiddies going to see the movie, plus there’s some nice touches like the CG lightning bugs and snowfall.
The movie certainly does look quite lovely, almost as if they somehow transferred certain settings from the animated movie directly to the screen, but the film ends up feeling so erratic as it alternates between paying homage to the original movie and trying to be a brand-new movie musical with fairly decent songs by EGOT winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land). Some of those new songs work far better than others, but it would still make a decent soundtrack that should sell many units. Nostalgia played a major part in the “Whistle While You Work” segment being my favorite part of the entire movie – odd-looking dwarves withstanding – but that’s also one of the few classic Churchill and Morey tunes that remains intact.
The thing is that despite the movie’s shortcomings, it did start to grow on me as it went along and most of that is due to the fact that Zegler is absolutely delightful as the title character, and every time she opened her mouth to speak or sing, I forgot about all of those problems. In hindsight, Zegler’s presence didn’t do quite enough to thwart the problems I had with the Hunger Games prequel, but as Snow White, she truly shines. There is a romantic lead in Andrew Burnap’s Jonathan, who isn’t a handsome prince as much as he’s a rebel and burglar fighting against the iron hand of the Queen in the name of her missing King. I could take or leave him as an actor, though he does have some fun musical duets with Zegler.
That all said, there’s no way around the fact that Gal Gadot is probably the weakest link of the movie, not just in terms of her acting but also her singing, which isn’t unlistenable, but she gives a performance that has little of the charisma of previous Evil Queens. As with last year’s Oscar-winning musical Wicked, the costumes and production design in Snow White often outshine the dialogue or performances, and that’s especially the case with Gadot, who wears such fabulous outfits, but just doesn’t deliver the level of menace one might expect of a Disney villain on her level. There’s a reason why Emma Stone and Angelina Jolie were far stronger in their roles of Cruella and Maleficent, even though I didn’t think either of those movies were particularly good.
Rachel Zegler is truly a revelation in the title role of a movie that has its issues, but definitely grows on you, mainly due to her presence. Girls of all ages who love Disney princesses and the musical aspect of many Disney films should be able to embrace what they’ve done here, even if others (mostly men) will remain cynical and continue to rage over any mock controversy.
Rating: 7/10
Snow White opens nationwide on Friday, March 21 with previews on Thursday.