The problemwith trailers is that they usually leave you having high hopes for the movies;be it consciously or subconsciously, our expectations for a movie is altered bythe many special effects and the actions that are portrayed in the trailers.And when the movie proves to be less exciting than the trailer, we tend to slamthe movie. We’ll feel short-changed in away.
I’m not sureif that applies for Snow White and the Huntsman. You see, when the trailer featuresCharlize Theron, I expected only the best from the movie. I mean, actors don’twin Oscars for no reasons right. And she did shine in the trailer. When I watchthe movie, I was indeed impressed with her acting as the deluded/ deranged evilqueen. And the best part is, the movie did try to give a little bit of abackground about the queen: How she was consumed with her own personal vendettaagainst kings and why was she so obsessed with beauty.
When I wasreading the book as a child, I always wondered why the queen would want to bethe fairest in the land. Somehow, not many films and books have given an explanationto this. Of course, one would naturally come to the conclusion of vanity, butthis movie did more than just that. It went one step further: The queen in thismovie wants to consume Snow White’s heart so that she can gain immortality, andmore importantly, Snow White threatens her very existence. So this queen justwants Snow White dead, cos Snow White would one day kill her.
And unlikemost versions, where Snow White is featured to be all good and the queen is allevil, this movie attempted to make you feel sorry for the queen and featuredSnow White to be not so innocent after all. It was hinted that Snow White mighthave an incestuous relationship with her cousin! And towards the end, it wasagain hinted that she might be claiming ownership to the Magic Mirror, andcontinue the reign as an “evil” queen, corrupted by the power of the mirror.
The specialeffects in this movie was also cutting edge. The castle, which sits in eerie splendor on an island joined to themainland only at low tide, is a gothic fantasy that reminds us of theGhormenghast series. Extras appear when needed, then disappear. The Queencommands extraordinary supernatural powers, including the ability tomaterialize countless black birds that can morph into fighting demons or shardsof cutting metal. All ofthis is rendered appropriately by the special effects, but the treasure of thisfilm is in two of its locations: a harsh, forbidding Dark Forest, and anenchanted fairyland. Both of these realms exist near the castle, and theHuntsman is enlisted in the first place because he knows the Dark Forest, whereSnow White has taken refuge.
My only gripe with this movie is thenarration, or rather how the story was told. Everything was done in half-hearted manner. It was trying to be darkand sinister, and yet it was done so half-heartedly that I don’t feel thedarkness within the movie and the intensity or seriousness of the movie istherefore lost. All the hints within the movie are so well-hidden, that if youdon’t pay extra attention to it, you will totally not get the subplots of thestory. The queen’s back story is so dispersed within the movie that you couldhardly feel sorry for her in the end. And Snow White’s dark nature is not felt,if you didn’t pay attention to the well-hidden plant-in(s).
And within the movie, I sometimes getconfused between the different scenes. There was this scene of a reindeer inthe middle of a forest, and I immediately thought of Harry Potter. And the sceneof Snow White in the snowy forest felt more like Bella travelling around in thesequel to Twilight.
All in all, the movie has a lot of potentialto be extra-ordinary, if only the director was more focused the crux of themovie. Right now, the movie is just… ordinary.
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