"Fearless, fair, brave, and true."
Hello everyone!
Unfortunately, while my country isn't as deep in hell as some other European ones (looking at you, poor, poor Spain ...), we're still experiencing a heatwave that's quite literally sweated the life out of me thus far.
Morning shifts combined with high temperatures meant that I mostly just vegged out in the afternoons and tried my hardest to not do anything, including sitting behind a computer to type.
This, of course, means I've fallen behind in this whole blogging business.
That's okay though! Because we're back.
And oh boy, do we have a doozy tonight.
Unless you're living under a big ass rock, you've heard all about the controversy surrounding tonight's movie of choice, and I can totally see where everyone's coming from. I really can.
Because let's face it, there have definitely been better adaptations of Snow White.
We all know the story, of course: a beautiful, kind princess, whose outside beauty reflects that of within, loses her parents and falls under the wing of her hateful stepmother. Said stepmother is obsessed with beauty, and once the kid is more beautiful than her, orders her killed, which doesn't happen. The girl runs off into the woods, rooms with seven Dwarfs, and eventually gets discovered again only to take a bite of the infamous poisoned apple, after which only love's first kiss wakes her up again.
Note that it's LOVE'S FIRST KISS, rather than TRUE LOVE'S KISS, like most other adaptations make it sound later on. I went to watch the original right after this travesty (I'll be reviewing that one next week), so I know.
The story ends when the prince kisses our beauty, and they live happily ever after, while the stepmother is rather brutally (if efficiently) taken off the board.
So, we know all this.
Disney's just keen on adding MORE to flesh out this story that doesn't really need fleshing out whatsoever.
For instance, because Rachel Zegler was cast as Snow White (sparking ire across the old continent because, well ...), they had to come up with another explanation for her name. Originally, Snow's name comes from the fact she has 'skin white as snow', 'hair black as a raven's wing', and 'lips red as blood'.
Okay sure, she sounds a bit like a vampire, which is a hot take I'd actually LOVE to see, but I digress. The point here is that Ms Zegler, with her ethnic background, just does not fit the role visually, but of course that's not something you can say nowadays as you're called racist right off the bat.
Anyway, it's such a stupid argument, let's move on. Snow and her family live in harmony with the village they govern, until the good Queen dies, the King remarries Gal Gadot, and then rides off to wage war down on the southern border, from which he never returns.
This leaves the Queen in charge, and she turns the happily singing village into her supply of soldiers, which she definitely needs as she hoards all the jewels and riches in her castle.
Snow White, now a maid, tries to argue that the people need happy more than jewels, but the Queen is like HAH child, u so silly.
Things come to a head when they catch a thief trying to steal food, and he's tied up to the gates as punishment (in the cold, without a coat), but Snow White releases him. After that, the magic mirror tells the Queen that, well, she's getting on in years and the kid growing up is more beautiful, what can you do?
Send her to the woods to die, if you have a competent enough huntsman, except this one of course lets her go, and with the help of forest animals, she makes it to the Dwarfs' cottage. Unlike in the original, where she cleans it up so they'll let her stay, she just goes to sleep in this one, while the Dwarfs are over there wondering what kind of monster's in their beds.
Once they establish she's not going to hurt them, Snow White implements the motto 'teamwork makes the dream work' and has them clean everything together, because obviously a woman cleaning the kitchen is much too misogynistic for 2025, then makes Dopey feel better when everyone makes fun of him.
Listen, I'm all for modernizing and whatever, but at least in the original the brothers cared for Dopey and were never nasty to the poor kid.
Snow's on a quest to find her father, sure that he's the only one who can bring harmony back to the kingdom, but she finds her released thief instead, who turns out to be an actor-turned-bandit? And he takes an arrow for her when the Queen's guards come lurking, so of course he's her one true love, naturally.
Nothing having worked thus far, the Queen (after too many singing skits that make my skin crawl because she's more comedic than terrifying with them) turns herself into an old hag, takes the poisoned apple, and has Snow White take a bite. Everyone's sad, until the thief (who got himself caught by the Queen in the interim, escaped, and found the forest once more) comes by to kiss her, which naturally wakes her up.
Then she goes to confront her stepmother, revealing she knows that the Queen arranged for the King to be killed, and because Snow White remembers how good it used to be, everyone else remembers, too.
Panicked, the Queen runs up to her mirror, but since it's only a piece of furniture and not much help, she breaks it, so in a final act of revenge the thing consumes her.
The kingdom saved, everyone can sing and dance to their heart's content once more, and the thief is running around happily with his Snow White.
The end!
The amount of problems stacking up in this movie is astounding. Setting aside the casting of Snow White, the casting of the Queen is also iffy, since Gal Gadot UNFORTUNATELY doesn't convey the menace she needs. And please, if there is a God, tell whoever's going to be making the next adaptation that there has to be LESS singing.
Changing the narrative from prince to thief seems to be something execs thought the masses would enjoy more, since he's your everyday hero rather than some whimsical royal, but part of Snow White's charm is her pure longing for the hero who'll take her away from all her suffering. Naturally, because the prince was cut, so were some of the most iconic original songs, replaced by new takes that sound suspiciously like those in the first Moana movie rather than original.
Don't get me started on the Dwarfs. I've seen AI that's better than the CGI they used on these atrocities, and overall the CGI in this movie is just BAD, noticeable, and doesn't do it any favours.
There's so many ways to take the story of Snow White and bring it to the big screen, but this one was just not it. From casting controversy to too much singing (something I never thought I'd say for a MUSICAL, but seriously, they sang for the stupidest things), not to mention terrible CGI, this one falls woefully short.
And again, it's not true love's kiss, it's love's first kiss.
xx
*images and video not mine
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