Fairytales are best left in the books if they’re going to be as dull or far-fetched as this. The second film adaptation of The Brother Grimms’ beloved Snow White (just two months after the Julia Roberts-helmed spoof Mirror, Mirror) is a bleak, one-note epic so ham-fistedly directed by music video specialist Rupert Sanders that its only highlight is a histrionic performance by Charlize Theron. Never mind that the production quality is top-notch (as all big-budgeted Hollywood titles usually are), especially its recreation of The Dark Forest into which our titular character stumbles after escaping from her evil stepmother, because halfway into the 130-minute feature we were hoping to do the same.
Yet the thrust of the story is mildly interesting. The picture opens with a quick back plot, revealing how the evil and ravishing Queen Ravenna (Theron) tricked Snow White’s father, a widowed king, into marrying her before murdering him on their marital bed. Along with her hapless twit of a brother, Finn (Sam Spruell), the two have a quasi-incestuous, master-and-servant relationship. Ravenna takes over the kingdom—turning it into a place of darkness and death—and locks away Snow White.
Fast forward 15 years later and the teenage and feisty Snow White (Kristen Stewart) escapes the castle, following Finn’s idiotic blunder and finds her way into The Dark Forest. Under Ravenna’s rule, the forest has become a wasteland in which tangled branches transform into writhing, hissing serpents and flowers glisten with venomous portent. The ravenous Ravenna, who desperately needs Snow White’s heart to immortalize her beauty, engages a hunky huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to track the latter down. But Snow White and the huntsman gang up instead, following a series of misadventures which includes an encounter with the famous Seven Dwarfs (played by an A-list cast including Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Toby Jones), who lead the two in their quest to find true love (shudder) and kill Ravenna.
The film would have been watchable if not for the fact that it is so overwrought—from Snow White’s metamorphosis into a Joan of Arc-like warrior after she wakes up from her Sleep of Death to the many sequences showcasing her power to heal. The film elevates camp to a whole new level. Save for a pitch-perfect performance by Theron, the film is dreary and pointless, compounded by a lack of chemistry between Stewart and Hemsworth. Best not to bite this rotten apple—you might just fall into a snooze too.