Snow White and the Huntsman * (2012, Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin, Bob Hoskins) – Classic Movie Review 8624

Director Rupert Sanders’s extremely disappointing Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) is a thing of beauty but a lame misfire, with the right cast in Kristen Stewart (as Snow White), Chris Hemsworth (as The Huntsman) and Charlize Theron (as the evil sorceress Queen Ravenna, Snow White’s wicked stepmother) not fired up or properly engaged. Sam Claflin co-stars as Snow’s childhood friend William, who sets off to save her.

With actors of this calibre, it must be a direction fault. But then the screenplay by Evan Daugherty (also story), John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini isn’t much to write home about either, lacking excitement and imagination as it plods through the familiar the German fairy tale Snow White compiled by the Brothers Grimm. The movie is extremely well dressed, but has nowhere to go.

Admittedly, the huge amount of money lavished on it ($170,000,000) is mostly up there on screen. It was an Oscar and Bafta nominee for Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood), and an Oscar nominee for Best Achievement in Visual Effects.

Nevertheless, it was a hit, grossing $155.3 million in the US, with a cumulative worldwide gross of $396.6 million, and a sequel followed: The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016), directed by the first film’s visual effects supervisor Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, with Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin and Nick Frost returning.

Bob Hoskins (1942–2014).

It is the last film of Bob Hoskins, playing Muir, before his death on 29 April 2014, aged 71, suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

The Seven Dwarfs are played by actors of average height with their faces digitalised onto small bodies, resulting in a protest from the Little People of America. They are played by Ian McShane as Beith the leader of the Dwarfs, Bob Hoskins as Muir, the blind elder Dwarf, Ray Winstone as Gort, an ill-tempered Dwarf, Nick Frost as Nion, Beith’s right-hand man, Toby Jones as Coll, Duir’s brother, Eddie Marsan as Duir, Coll’s brother, Johnny Harris as Quert, Muir’s son, and Brian Gleeson as Gus, youngest of the Dwarfs.

Also in the cast are Raffey Cassidy as young Snow White, Izzy Meikle-Small as young Ravenna, Xavier Atkins as young William, Sam Spruell as Finn, Ravenna’s brother and enforcer, Elliot Reeve as young Finn, Vincent Regan as Duke Hammond, William’s father, Lily Cole as Greta, who befriends Snow White, Noah Huntley as King Magnus, Snow White’s father, Liberty Ross as Queen Eleanor, Snow White’s mother, Chris Obi as the voice of Mirror Man, physical form of the Magic Mirror, Rachael Stirling as Anna, Hattie Gotobed as Lily, Greg Hicks as Black Knight General, Peter Ferdinando as Black Knight and Anastasia Hille as Ravenna’s Mother.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8624

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