Disney has been making bank with recent live-action fairy tale adaptations. Alice in Wonderland. Maleficent. Cinderella. Jungle Book. Even Oz: The Great & Powerful. Studios have tried to recreate Disney's success. Emphasis on "tried". Realitivty media tried the light-hearted romantic comedy, Mirror Mirror. It sucked and no one saw it. Paramount went the dark and gritty route with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. It sucked and no one watched it. WB is makinging a Jungle Book movie based more on the book, which has potential. However, they also tried to bring in the YA audience with Red Reding Hood, which sucked and no one saw it. Then they tried the adeventurous route with Jack: The Giant Slayer, which sucked and no one watched it. Then they saw a success by going with the origin story with Pan. That was one of the worst films released in 2015 and was also of that year's biggest box office bombs.
The studio that came the closest to recreating Disney's success with the LOTR-style fantasy film, Snow White & The Huntsman. The film got mixed reviews, but was a box office hit. Personally, I enjoyed it. I thought it was an interesting take on the fairy tale with some interesting characters, some nice visuals, some cool action scenes, and a fantastic villain in the form of Charlize Theron's Queen Ravenna. A sequel was announced almost immediately, but after some behind the scenes drama (I'm not going into detail about it) with the director and Kristen Stewart, both took off and the sequel became a spin-off. So was this worth almost four years or was Stewart right to leave?
CONS
The movie was marketed as a prequel and you'd think it would be. See, Jessica Chastain play's the Huntsman's wife who was said to be dead in the last movie and Charlize Theron returns as Queen Ravenna, who died at the end of the last film. So this is a prequel, right? Yes and no. See, for the first 30 minutes, it's a prequel. Then it cuts to seven years later and it's all "It's a sequel now! Look, we even brought back Sam Claflin and Nick Frost!!!" That's one of the things wrong with this film. It doesn't know what it wants to be. It should have chosen between sequel and prequel, but it choosing both makes the film uneven. Plus, it would make it confusing for people who didn't see the last film. After Ravenna appears in the opening, they go "The Huntsman and Snow White killed her".
Another big problem is the pacing. This movie goes from rushed to slow way too many times. Let me give you an example. Here's some stuff that happens: Ravenna kills a king and takes over his kingdom. She drags her sister., Freya, along with her. She finds out Freya has a daughter and fiance. The fiance would have to disown his family to marry her. The fiance decides to do so. However, Freya finds that her daughter was murdered by the fiance. She reveals she has ice powers and kills the fiance. She leaves to take over another kingdom, when some kids are taken away and their parents are murdered. The kids are trained to be an army for Freya and two of them are yound versions of Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain. Did you think I sopiled anything? 'Cause I didn't. THAT ALL HAPPENS THE FIRST TEN MINUTES!!! And when the movie decides not to rush stuff like that, it becomes incredibly slow. They slow down to focus on romance and exposition, but those scenes go on for way too long.
The romances are also boring. No, not romance. Romances. Since Nick Frost reprises his role from the last film as a dwarf. He is joined by three new dwarves, one male, two female. They all fall in love and it comes out of and goes nowhere. As for the central romance between Chris Hemsworth's Huntsman character, Eric, and his wife, it feels so forced. The romantic banter is just them bickering because they haven't seen each other in seven years and in the end, they love each other again.
Chastain's character also feels forced in. She play's The Huntsman's wife, who was said to be dead. But she appears and it turns out she's alive. The reason for her being alive is the dumbest thing ever, even for a fantasy. Also, she feels completely miscast, as does Emily Blunt as Freya. Emily Blunt just speaks in monotone most of the time. And Chastain does a bad scottish accent. I feel if they switched roles, they would fit better.
Plus, their characters feel like watered down versions of Disney characters. Emily Blunt doesn't just look like Elsa. She's a character whose ice powers were unleashed after someone she loved made her upset. It's like if Elsa was an evil psychopath. But you could make the arguement that there is a snow queen fairy tale, so she's not an Elsa ripoff. However, Jessica Chastain's character is the red-headed Scottish archer lass who never misses. In other words, she's playing Merida from Brave.
To me, the wrost thing is what they did to Charlize Theron's Revenna. People who liked and people who hated Snow White & The Huntsman both agreed that Charlize Theron was amazing in the first film. However, in this, she's barely in it. Her reason for being alive is stupid. And at the end, it turns out she's just jealous of her sister for finding love when she couldn't, which pretty ruins her.
PROS
The visuals are fantastic. The CGI used for the shortening the actors to make them dwarves is amazing. The creatures (that appear in one scene) are great, The CGI used for the magic and ice powers are great. This movie was directed by the visual effects supervisor of the last filmand it really shows. They don't care about story. They care about BIG PRETTY THINGS. The actions scenes are a delight a well. My favorite is a fight with Hemsworth and Chastain between the rest of the Huntsman.
The two characters that are the saving graces of this movie, along with the visuals and action scenes, are Eric and Nick Frost's dwarf character. Eric actually gets some development and Hemsworth manages to bring some charm into the role. Nick Forst's character is one of the comedy reliefs and he actually manages to be funny. Although his romance with a femae dwarf feels pointless, I still liked him.
VERDICT:
The Huntsman: Winter's War does have a few redeeming qualities like Hemsworth, Frost, the visuals, and action scenes, but it's all bogged down by pointless romances, weak female leads, miscast actresses, misuse of Charlize Theron, and uneven pacing. I feel like this had pontential by making more movies that are twists on fairy tales. But whatever it had was wasted here. If you didn't like Snow White & The Huntsman, don't even bother with this. You'll despise it. If you liked the first film, I'd say you should give it a chance, but just wait to rent it, because this isn't worth price of admission. I remember a few years ago, when Universal was the studio that came the closest to recreating the success of Disney's live-action fairy tales. But now, they're just like when WB, Paramount, and Realitivity tried to recreate the success. Because this movie sucked, and looking at this weekend's box office, nobody saw it. Still better than Pan, though.
4/10