This first live-action Snow White is not as magical as we were hoping to see.There have been other live-action remakes of beloved Disney animated films, but this is the first for this 1937classic that started the legendary animated empire.
It has all the trappings, but Director Marc Webb and Writer Erin Cressida Wilson made changes in the story to update the production and to accommodate the talented Latina lead, Rachel Zegler (West Side Story). Zegler, trained on stage and screen, does a credible job acting, singing and dancing in a demanding lead. And Snow White’s true love, Jonathan, is not a prince, though a talented, good-looking, Andrew Burnap (We Crashed).
The film starts flipping through the story book with a “Once Upon a Time” along with adorable CG animals rolling around the book leading to the first big production number. Young Snow White and her King and Queen parents are passing out apples and apple pies to the people in their idyllic kingdom. The music is lively, but Mandy Moore’s choreography of the production number is overloaded with 135 dancers and 100 extras in dances that are neither sharp nor crisp, and it doesn’t flow. We found the other big production number at the end of the film to be just as overloaded, and somewhat messy as the one in the opening scene.
There’s always at least one parent missing in Disney’s animated classics this is no exception. Snow White’s parents, the Good Queen (Lorena Andrea) dies. Her father, the Good King (Hadley Fraser) remarries the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot – Wonder Woman) who sends him away to fight a war and treats Snow White cruelly, like a scullery maid.
Gadot is an imposing figure as a selfish evil witch. She’s an authoritarian who cares not at all for the people in the kingdom. Gadot is absolutely stunning, but goth-like, overloaded with garish make-up and sparkles all over her stiff costume. It’s reminiscent of her character’s look in the original film, but so overdone. Her singing is not strong enough for her character and all you really remember is her trademark line to the magic mirror, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” She is not given any other snappy, comedic, dramatic or memorable lines to make her character anything but one dimensional. And we think she is too scary for little audience members, hence the PG rating.
We think the redeeming aspect of the film are the seven dwarfs. The animated CGI faces are inspired by the real actors who voice them. There has been criticism for not using little people actors instead of the computer generated characters in this film. We can see the reasoning, but we enjoyed these characters as presented. The actors whose voices you hear for the CGI dwarfs are Martin Klebba, who has dwarfism, as Grumpy, Tituss Burgess as Bashful, George Salazar as Happy, Jason Kravits as Sneezy, Andy Grotelueschen as Sleepy, and Jeremy Swift as Doc, and Andrew Barth Feldman as our favorite, Dopey. Their musical numbers were much more interesting and fun.
We were disappointed by the original songs composed for the film by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. We didn’t hear anyone walking out of the theater humming any of the new songs. The best tunes are the recognizable “Heigh Ho” and “Whistle While You Work” by Frank Churchill and Larry Morey from the 1937 original animated film. Call it nostalgia, but we missed the “I’m Wishing” song that was replaced by the new “I’m Waiting on a Wish.”
The developing relationship between between Snow White and Jonathan is believable and builds as he is trying to save himself and his men as well as Snow White from the Witch. The CG transformation into the old monochromatic hag giving Snow White the poisoned apple wasn’t as dramatic or scary as in the animated original. There wasn’t even a good cackle. The scene with the most emotion is when, surrounded by the dwarfs, Jonathan sees her and gives her that special kiss. And the audience responded with sniffles in our screening.
Rachel Zegler can do it all and fills the bill. We wanted Gal Gadot’s witch more multi-dimensional and less garish. Does this new imagining supply the magic we were wishing for? “Mirror mirror on the wall, this might not be the best Snow White of all.”
Walt Disney Pictures 1 hour 49 minutes PG
