The Irish Times provides a critical review of Disney's live-action adaptation of Snow White, highlighting several shortcomings.
The film reimagines the classic story, introducing elements such as a monarchy reminiscent of 'fully automated luxury communism'. Rachel Zegler stars as Snow White, portraying her as a strong and caring heroine who faces exile and encounters woodland creatures and dwarves. Gal Gadot plays the Evil Queen.
The musical revisions are inconsistent and lack the charm of the original. The classic song 'Someday My Prince Will Come' is absent, while 'Heigh-Ho' and 'Whistle While You Work' are extended, and new songs are added by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
The film's live-action style is criticized for its problematic and jarring visuals. The 'permanent magic-hour lighting' and the decision to cartoonize the dwarves while keeping the human actors realistic is noted as detracting from the viewer experience. The visual treatment of the dwarves is described as problematic.
Despite Rachel Zegler's strong performance, the film is considered a 'muddled mess' due to its inconsistent plot, musical choices, and distracting visual aspects. The review suggests that the film's attempt to modernize the classic story has failed to impress.
Snow White
Director: Marc Webb
Cert: G
Genre: Family
Starring: Rachel Zegler, Andrew Burnap, Gal Gadot, Ansu Kabia, Andrew Barth Feldman, George Appleby
Running Time: 1 hr 49 mins
This long-delayed Snow White is allegedly a live-action musical reimagining of Walt Disney’s classic film. Does anyone recall in that 1937 original a monarchy arranged along the lines of Aaron Bastani’s notion of fully automated luxury communism?
With more than a nod to the Snow White & the Huntsman sequence, Rachel Zegler’s titular, arse-kicking heroine grows up as a caring young royal who, alongside her equally kindly sovereign parents, dispenses – checks notes – apple pies among their happy subjects.
One musical number later, the first in line to the throne is orphaned and sweeping floors for her wicked stepmom and royal usurper, the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot, barking orders in an Israeli accent).
Exiled to the forest, Snow White finds comrades among anthropomorphised woodland critters, seven dwarves and a band of merry men led by her dull love interest, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap).
Together they march on the palace in a revision that has annoyed the “go woke, go broke” brigade. Other milquetoasts have objected to the casting of Zegler, whose grandmother was Colombian, in the primary role. The West Side Story star, who sings her heart out, is the best thing in the film.
The musical revisions, in common with the muddled politics, are inconsistent. Surely there was some way to rehabilitate the tradwife anthem Someday My Prince Will Come. That ditty has been nixed from the soundtrack. The other original tunes Heigh-Ho and Whistle While You Work are extended and supplemented by showstoppers from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, whose song This Is Me, from The Greatest Showman, earned the Oscar winners another Academy Award nomination.
The most distracting flaws are rooted in the problematic re-creation of animated material in “live-action” cinema. The permanent magic-hour lighting is hard to look at. Worse, the decision to “cartoonise” the dwarves alongside human actors is hugely problematic. It jarringly takes the viewer out of the movie. And giving little people the same cartoony treatment afforded chirping bluebirds and – checks notes, again – a praying graveside squirrel is not a good look.
Snow White is in cinemas from Friday, March 21st
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