FILM REVIEW: SNOW WHITE (PG) ESP RATING: 2/5

Out of all the Disney live-action remakes so far – toxicity meant this was destined to fail from the start.

With a slew of criticism blighting the production of the movie – from accusations of colour-blind ‘woke’ casting with Hispanic lead star Rachel Zegler, her critiques of the original 1937 Walt Disney animation, other politically-motivated social media, and the reimagining of the seven dwarfs – it was going to be hard to turn the tide.

And sadly it hasn’t. Headlined by its disastrous $43million opening weekend Stateside.

But it’s not a complete calamity. Zegler had musical pedigree with her West Side Story Golden Globe win, and even though she doesn’t quite feel right as the title character, she still gives it her all. As does Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) as the Evil Queen. And to be fair the computer-generated dwarfs don’t look half as bad as fans may have feared – with Dopey affectionately being one of the film’s highlights.

But one major problem is the original story itself is so simplistically antiquated, it was going to be hard to diversify too far from Walt’s first ever motion picture. Bizarrely, instead of switching up the traditional storyline, producers decided to overhaul the traditions of the some of much-loved characters instead.

The plotline is the straightforward one. A benevolent king and queen welcome their daughter into the world during a snow storm – naming her Snow White. Years later the queen falls ill and passes away, with the king hastily remarrying after taking a mysterious woman (Gadot) as his second wife. He then disappears to never return after leaving to mount a campaign against an imminent threat to the kingdom’s borders.

This leaves the new queen to usurp the throne, and she then reveals herself as an evil enchantress – whose vanity surpasses her beauty. Under her rule, people are either conscripted to her royal guard, or left destitute due to heavy taxation.

Everyone presumes Snow White to be dead – unaware the Evil Queen has confined her to the castle as a scullery maid – with the queen threatened by her beauty, and having to consult a ‘Magic Mirror’ daily, who tells her she’s the fairest one of all.

But when Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), the leader of a band of thieves, raids the pantry and is caught, Snow White frees him from captivity. And when the mirror newly proclaims the maiden as the ‘fairest of all’ – she’s banished to the forest after a failed assassination goes awry.

Here she befriends a group of dwarfs – and eventually Jonathan’s clan – and starts an uprising to try to liberate the kingdom from her cruel stepmother. With a certain ‘apple’ involved along the way.

And while it pretty much sticks to formula – with a handful of minor modern day tweaks – there’s little wrong with the musical interludes and general efforts of the cast at hand. There’s nothing really standout – bar the legendary ‘Heigh-Ho’ – but nothing really terrible either.

But in that lies its problem, it’s all fairly boring. Very much ‘connect the dots’ in a basic fashion. And the changes that got naysayers’ ‘knickers in a twist’ didn’t really resonate to make much of an impact anyway.

Which pretty much leaves this as an uninspiringly ‘dopey’ retooling of a simple, but beloved, animation. But at least Dopey was the most likeable thing about it.

Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all? Sadly not this tediously messy version of Snow White.

This should have been left frozen in the past . . . just as it was.

ESP Rating: 2/5

Gavin Miller

Showcase Cinema De Lux Peterborough & Odeon Luxe Peterborough, Out Now

Cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap, Ansu Kabia, Jeremy Swift, Andrew Barth Feldman & Patrick Page

Running Time: 1 Hr 49 Mins

Director: Marc Webb

Film Review Venue: Showcase Cinema De Lux Peterborough

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