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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!

    SWATH (Snow White And The Huntsman) early review

    I don't know what to make of this. I hated it. Ok, that is a bit strong. It was not horrible, but...

    I was bored much of the time. I am serious. I yawned three or four times.
    I thought it went over-the-top to the point of ridiculousness.
    At times it was trying soooo hard to be Lord of the Rings, I almost wanted to laugh, but I was shaking my head with disgust instead.
    It includes some of the lamest dialogue on the planet.
    The story, for the most part, makes absolutely no sense.

    Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?



    So, I was all ready to just rip it a new one and recommend no one with a brain go to see this film...but when the movie ended, I spoke to some young (20s and 30s) women about it and they said they liked it. They could not really articulate why they liked it and they said it wasn't great or anything, but they did not hate it. So, maybe it is not as bad as I thought.

    The fellow critics I sat with all said horrible things. We all felt it was art direction gone insane. The movie is so preoccupied with being visually stunning and looking epic that it does not bother to do any character development or have a thoughtful story. We were just ripping it... and then we asked these women about it and the women liked it. I dunno...

    The story is horrid. The first 15 minutes is largely narrated, which is always a weak plot device. But, at least something is happening! The middle 2/3rds of the film are just Snow White and the Huntsman running away from the Queen's henchmen. They got from place to place and feel safe for a minute before the Queen's men arrive again and kill everyone around them and they have to run again. It is dull and meaningless and it goes on FOREVER! It adds nothing to the characters or even to their relationship. The ending is a total mess with a big battle that defies logic most of the time. The movie is totally humorless for the first 90 minutes but then suddenly adds some "look, the dwarfs are small and funny" humor in the climax that defuses any sense of peril or importance from the final battle. It is almost like they took every notion of what makes a good swords and sorcery adventure movie and decided to do the exact opposite. Ugh!

    I think the film wants to say something about inner beauty or maybe the beauty of nature or... heck, I dunno... but it falls apart every time it does. Snow White seems to have some ability to commune with animals and nature but they never do much more with it than just have her conveniently calm wild beasts at the right moment. Whatever?!?!

    Kristen Stewart has the exact same "I feel angst!" look on her face throughout this entire movie that she does in all the Twilight films. Please, make it stop! She delivers a speech at the end that is supposed to "rally the troops" that I simply must read in script form. I swear, it made no sense at all. It sounded like you took 3 different inspirational battle speeches and randomly inserted lines from each of them to give her one speech. She has zero chemistry with ANYONE in the film. I almost wanted Robert Pattinson to show up in a cameo because at least they seem to have some connection to each other.

    The best part of the film is The Queen, played by Charlize Theron. It almost seems, at times, like the movie wants to make her a somewhat sympathetic evil character, but then it goes so over-the-top in her evilness that you know that cannot be the case. She probably has the most depth of any character in the story, which is a major problem for a film like this. Her character is so cartoonishly bad at times it is hard to even understand what is going on in her head. For example, when her soldiers bring the Magic Mirror into her chamber, she bellows at them "GET OUT!!" for no reason and her eyeballs are practically jumping out of the sockets she is so angry at them for... uhhh... nothing. It does not work.



    Ok, I have ripped it enough. Like I said, there were some women at the screening who liked it, though I did not consider it at all of a romance/love story and it was very dark so I would not have ordinarily pegged it as a film that would appeal to women. I wrote a lot about it, probably because I saw the potential for something better and more interesting. If it was just horrid and totally worthless, like Battleship or Dark Shadows, I would not have written so much. It does have a beautiful visual style and clearly they spent a lot of money making it look good... my problem is that looks only get you so far. I actually need characters I care about and a story to get me to the point where I consider a movie worthwhile. This movie comes up far short in that regard.

    --Jason "it ain't a total trainwreck... but it ain't very good either" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  2. #2
    Well, there goes my dark horse pick in the top movies poll. I was hoping that Stewart would bring the Twilight fans and Hemsworth might bring along some superhero fans who didn't know what they'd be getting in to. With a review like that... probably not.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    Kristen Stewart is the lead? 'Nuff said. I'll opt for Abe the Vampire Slayer. Maybe we can do a movie mash-up and have Abe slay Snow/Stewart, who was bitten by Pattinson (team edward?).

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by PensDevil View Post
    Well, there goes my dark horse pick in the top movies poll. I was hoping that Stewart would bring the Twilight fans and Hemsworth might bring along some superhero fans who didn't know what they'd be getting in to. With a review like that... probably not.
    Hey, I could be dead wrong. I will say again something I hinted at toward the end of my review-- I was passionate about my dislike for the film. And when I am passionate about something, it generally means there is something worthwhile there that caused me to feel passionate. If the movie just sucks, I tend to say, "it sucks," and be done with it. When I bother to go into lengthy discussion of why it bothered me, that is often a sign that there was something that which, if fixed, could have made the movie really good.

    I think that is the case with this film. It is not a worthless pile of steaming... stuff. It has value. It features wondrous artistic sense and its revisionist take on the Snow White story is capable of surprising you a little bit. As I stated, some people coming out of the screening liked it and I think this movie has a chance to find an audience. You will note that unlike my reviews of Dark Shadows and Battleship, I did not immediately dismiss the notion that the film will be a large boxoffice success.

    I think some of you have heard me mention that I often try to avoid reviews before seeing a film for the first time. I had largely avoided reviews prior to seeing SWATH. Well, imagine my surprise when, upon reading a few reviews today, I notice that some critics really like this film. Roger Ebert gave it 3 1/2 stars. It stands at a respectable 54% on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment. I think that figure will come down, but this is not going to be one of those rotten stinkers that get in the 20s on the Tomatometer.

    I am still not recommending that anyone go see this flick. I still think it was dull and featured an absurd script. But, I am willing to temper my comments enough to admit that some folks will like this film and it is, if nothing else, at least pretty to look at.

    -Jason "since Avengers, everything has been mediocre at best... Joss Whedon ruined my summer!!" Evans
    Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Elon, NC
    Well, John Carter and Battleship both got poor reviews here and from other sources and I still enjoyed them. So I might chance Snow White anyway.
    Tom Mac

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