This movie had a lot of drama behind the scenes, from the actors to the politics around the dwarfs and using real actors, to the point where the release dates were pushed back multiple times. Going into it, I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect.
The bar was already too low. At this point, I was going in for the technical stuff, visuals, to be specific. I could call this movie terrible, but let’s just say I was surprised by how poorly put together it is.
While a lot in this doesn’t work, there are one or two decent aspects about the film.
Rachel Zegler, surprise, surprise as Snow White is good in her performance. Apart from the look, her songs were well delivered, and she can sing. You can understand why the production went for her.
I can see really young children enjoying the look of the film; it’s surreal and “magical” for a visually unjaded mind. Far from perfect, but I can see what the visual effects team was trying to do. I can also confidently say I could see where the director was trying to take the story.
Everything else
Plot-wise, this movie is a train wreck of conflicting tones, rushed storytelling, and baffling creative choices. From the jump, it struggles with identity. It tries to be both a nostalgic homage to the original animated movie and a modern reinvention, and it fails at both.
Snow White herself has two clashing personalities. In one scene, she’s gentle and hopeful; in the next, she’s cynical and cold, the modern version of the “strong female character.”
She has less of a character arc and more like two different drafts from two different movies stitched together. Her relationship with the love interest, which is supposed to be pivotal in the Snow White story, is somehow even worse.
Zero buildup, zero chemistry, and yet we’re meant to believe they’re madly in love by the second and third acts. It’s lazy, and it shows.
The final confrontation between Snow White and the Queen plays out like a rushed rewrite. The Queen is reduced to throwing out vague threats and vanishing into a mirror. Soldiers switch sides for an absurdly stupid reason that had me asking, “That’s it? That’s the resolution?” No tension, no payoff, no sense of triumph.
Look, I’m going to try keep it simple, Gal Gadot as the Queen looks the part, but Gal Gadot can’t sing.
The visual effects, especially with the dwarfs and animals, could have been better if the artists were given enough time to polish them.
Conclusion?
You can tell there was a good movie somewhere, but whatever that was got buried under rewrites, reshoots, and studio interference.
Snow White isn’t just bad, it’s disappointing. Disney should just leave classic 2D animated movies alone and come up with new ideas.
