If it seems a little odd that we’ve got a sequel/prequel to Snow White and The Huntsman that does not include Snow White, then you are not alone. It is made especially weird that throughout The Huntsman: Winter’s War, that that fairy tale character is mentioned repeatedly, but never shown.
We all know about the scandalous fallout from the actress who played Snow White in that first film (Kristen Stewart) and her affair with that film’s married director (Rupert Sanders). One could see why all those involved in making a sequel to that successful film that was surprisingly enjoyable would want to distance themselves from all that would remind audiences of the celebrity gossip headlines. Therefore, Stewart and her Snow White is gone and Sanders is replaced by director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan.
What else is fascinating about this endeavor is that judging by the tagline that invokes the idea of what happened before Snow White, one would think that this is a prequel. That’s a fantastic way around the omission of the main character from the first film. Yet, it is not a prequel at all. Some of the story takes place before, but a majority of it takes place in the time after Snow White and The Huntsman.
Confused? Well, it’s not like the plot does anything to help that dizzying affliction.
We learn that the Evil Queen (Charlize Theron) from the first film, had a sister Queen Freya (Emily Blunt) and the two had a falling out that had Freya discovering her supernatural power of shooting ice and snow from her hands and generally making the world around her a frozen tundra. Honestly, that too is a tad confusing as it truly makes us feel like we’re watching Elsa from Frozen come to life in live action.
Queen Freya feels that she is rounding up her kingdom’s children to save them from their families. In fact, she is recruiting an army of Huntsman (and women, really). Two of them is Chris Hemsworth’s Eric and Jessica Chastain’s Sara. The two grow up and become part of a formidable force that Queen Freya will use to rule the lands that surround her. After being scorned by love, the royal has banned that emotion. When Sara and Eric find those feelings, they are forcibly separated and our story truly starts to take shape. Well, kind of. Somewhere in the mix is Theron’s Ravenna and her desire to rule, along with that iconic mirror that tells us who the fairest in the land is, or will be.
The performances are solid. Hemsworth is just as great as he was in the first film. Clearly the actor is comfortable around the action movie elements with all his work as Thor. The trouble is his accent seems to drift from English to Irish to Scottish on any given day and that too adds to the puzzlement nature of this film. Blunt is a force of nature (pun intended). She continues to grow as an actress and in fact saves this film from being utterly boring. She is a fantastic villain and we look forward to the day where she can truly shine in that vein in a script that has more weight and frankly, more of an interesting level of drama at its core. Want to see her at her best? Watch Sicario!
We adore Chastain and think she has quickly become one of the most talented actresses of her generation. Unfortunately, in The Huntsman: Winter’s War, she is grossly miscast. It’s not that she cannot do action (just watch her in The Debt). It is that the way the part is written, it simply doesn’t fit her persona and her talents in the least.
After thoroughly enjoying Snow White and The Huntsman, our hopes were high for this sequel/prequel. But sadly, upon leaving the theater, one is left with more questions than answers. Most notably… “Why?”
Grade: C-