Monday, April 18, 2016

Snow White and The Huntsman - Retelling of a Classic Fairy Tale

I purposely watched this movie before I watch the prequel The Huntsman: Winter's War which is playing in the theater so as to understand the story. This movie was adapted from the fairy tale "Snow White" which was part of the compilation of folklores by German brothers called "the brothers Grimm". They have made popular folklores such as Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel and many others which were also adapted few times into movies.

Anyway, this movie focused the story on the princess Snow White, born to Queen Eleanor from Kingdom of Tabor who wished to have a daughter as white as snow and lips as red as blood. When Snow White was still a young child, she befriended with William, the son of Duke Hammond. Later Queen Eleanor fell sick and passed away, leaving young Snow White and her father, King Magnus.

When the army of dark forces wanted to attack the kingdom, King Magnus and his armies fought them and managed to save their prisoner Ravenna (played by Charlize Theron - Hancock, Mad Max: Fury Road and many others). Enchanted by her beauty, the king immediately asked her for marriage. During their wedding night, Ravenna revealed herself as a sorceress and killed the king while releasing the kingdom's gates for her dark armies (led by her brother Finn) to come in. Ravenna took over as queen and ordered her army to kill all the guards while imprisoning Snow White. Ravenna also asked the magic mirror who was the fairest in the country & she would get her satisfying answer that it was her. Meanwhile, the kingdom also became ruined and the land almost died since Ravenna became queen.

Years later, when Queen Ravenna asked the magic mirror again, she was informed that Snow White (played by Kristen Stewart: Panic Room, Twilight series etc) has become an adult and Ravenna was no longer the fairest of them all. Knowing this, Ravenna instructed his brother Finn to bring Snow White's heart to her. All this time, Ravenna was able to maintain her youth and looks by absorbing the life out of young women.

Snow White managed to escape from the prison and ran to the Dark Forest. This was found out by one of the army of Duke Hammond who informed the Duke and his son William (who was also an adult now, played by Sam Claflin - The Hunger Games series). Having this knowledge, William who felt guilty for leaving Snow White behind during the invasion of Ravenna, decided to assist Snow White.

Meanwhile, since Ravenna's magic/power could not work in the dark forest, she asked Finn to assign someone to capture Snow White. Finn was able to locate a drunk Huntsman named Eric (Chris Hemsworth - Thor, Blackhat etc) who had ever gone and came back from the dark forest. Eric, at first rejected Ravenna's demand, but later he was tempted by the possibility of Ravenna raising his dead wife.

Using his experience, Eric was able to capture Snow White easily. But convinced by her offering for gold and also disappointed with Finn's statement that Ravenna would never be able to help Eric's wife return to the living, Eric changed his mind and decided to help Snow White instead.

Now being hunted by Finn and his thugs, Snow White and Eric must find the way to go to Duke Hammond's mansion and seek his help to return the kingdom to its rightful leader and defeat Ravenna with the help from the dwarfs whom they met during their journey.

So can Snow White and the Huntsman complete their task to defeat the evil queen Ravenna? Can the country be returned to safety from the disaster brought by Ravenna? You can find them out by watching the movie till completion.

To tell you the truth I did not have a good time watching this movie. It felt more like an obligation rather than for enjoyment since I do not like to watch a sequel/prequel without watching the preceeding movie. In addition, the movie itself lacked something that interest me. The action sequence was a little bit ordinary, though the special effects of the dark armies, or the change of shape by magic mirror & Ravenna were good. The twists that they wanted to make for such movie were not really good. Not to mention Kristen Stewart looks expressionless all the time and did not look believable as Snow White.

Anyway, if you want to see different interpretation of this kind of fairy tale, I think Maleficent is much much better. If you want to watch the prequel, The Huntsman: Winter's War, I believe there is no need for you to watch this movie first. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

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