I hated Lilo & Stitch, so I expected watching Snow White the next day would be an exercise in masochism. But I didn’t hate this one!
The greatest flaws of this movie stem from all the evil things you already know are evil about Disney. For one, you’re not supposed to cast anyone actually evil to play the Evil Queen. (Ideally, you cast someone with range, too.) Gal Gadot has layers of issues – Disney was wrong to give her a paycheck and Snow White deserved to flop.
The myth of the Royalty That Are Actually Good is a personal pet peeve of mine, but one I accept as inevitable in the context.
The CGI for the Seven Dwarves is better than The Polar Express, but I still caught myself thinking about The Polar Express, which says enough.
That said, I found the songs pleasant, Snow White was a good singer, and I appreciate amendments made in adaptation.
For one, they inserted a song between Snow White and her love interest that allows her to pre-consent to kissing him while she’s unconscious. Her love interest is not Prince Charming, but more like Prince of Thieves, and has the floppy-haired appeal of young Carey Elwes.
Snow White doesn’t decide to spend a while as Wifey Mom to the Dwarves; she tries to go out into the forest to pursue her goals. She also ends up performing a bloodless coup against the Evil Queen with peaceful military backing, which is the sort of pleasant idealism I consider the realistic limits of this type of story.
The Seven Dwarves probably can’t be done well. Whether depicted as CGI, Little People, or full-height actors (like Snow White and the Huntsman), the Seven Dwarves are a fundamental problem. They’re the main reason I think we should just stop adapting Snow White.
“They were very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.”
There are other fairytales to adapt!
However, the filmmakers did cast Little People to play human roles (not magical Dwarves), which seemed to be a nod to this difficulty. I noticed at least two actors. I was only half-watching while playing Valheim, so I hope there are more. I didn’t like it enough to watch again and find out.
Disney live-action adaptations are a bar set into the ground. This one stepped over the bar at least as well as The Little Mermaid. With my expectations appropriately set for this eldritch subgenre, I give this 2.5 stars for a did-not-make-me-wish-for-death adaptation that didn’t feel completely pointless, even if the Evil Queen was a huuuge whiff.
