Films > Film Reviews

Snow White

24/03/25

Snow White - muddled, miserable magic mirror can’t see its own flaws

It’s hard to believe that it was almost eight years ago that a modern take on a Disney classic entered pre-production. After having reshoots akin to modern cinematic disaster stories such as Borderlands (2024) and Kraven The Hunter (2024), as well as enduring the post-production turmoil of the more recent Captain America: Brave New World (2025), the disastrous legacy of the new Disney’s Snow White (2025) has begun while the film is still in the public eye.

Muted colour grading, horribly miscast, derisively dire. I struggle to extract any feelings from this two-hour snoozefest at all, never mind separate them into positive and negative thoughts.

The movie has as many differences from the original Snow White (1937) movie as it does similarities. At times, the new direction actually pays off. Some of the new songs are very well made, even if they don’t have the visuals to match. Even singing the greatest song in human history while wearing dark pastel colours and surrounded by grey can’t save you.

I realised soon after the credits rolled why exactly I felt so conflicted, and the best way to put it is that the movie isn’t on the side of the viewer. From the opening, the pace is relentless. How is a child meant to keep up with this? The backstory at the beginning is so long that you can tell concessions and scenes must have been cut. It never stops. The film is so fast. It’s like the studio just wanted it to be over as fast as possible. I don’t blame them, I did too.

Consistently, it never felt like what I was watching was a tangible, real end-product that hundreds, possibly thousands, of visual effects artists were legitimately proud of. There was a lingering sense of unease that made me feel like I wasn’t being transported to a magical world but rather watching the result of years of controversy as a mercy.

There’s no getting passed the fact that very few people are going into Disney’s Snow White blind. Rachel Zegler, in the starring role as the eponymous character, stirred up some early PR disaster fuel by securing her place as the most obnoxious interviewee in recent Hollywood history. Her questionable remarks on the new direction that this reimagining would go had fans and cinema goers around the world rolling their eyes for years. Add Gal Gadot into the mix, and the movie fostered an intensely bad reputation that only grew stronger over the years, only reaching a climax on release day.

One shining example of the trouble that happened behind the scenes in this movie is the transformation of the iconic dwarfs. Firstly, ‘and the seven dwarfs’ was removed from the title of the movie. Then, they cast live action dwarfs, which garnered a negative response when the wider audience heard about it through the grapevine. Disney, bending their knee to any fan feedback at every stage of production, then backtracked and made the dwarfs CGI abominations. Since it was a late decision, I thought it may manifest in the final film through the dwarfs having a reduced role to play. I was so wrong. Although they look nightmarish, get used to them, because you’re going to be seeing them a lot.

As much as the movie tries, it can’t escape the controversies that clouded it. Rachel and Gal - in her role as the Evil Queen - bounce off each other with about as much charisma as a fast-food worker making a cheeseburger for the hundredth time in a day. 

There is no way to say it lightly – Rachel, Gal, and indeed any human character in the entire production, sound as though they genuinely have a script in front of them and are reading through the lines for the first time. I wasn’t convinced. Even if the delivery of the script left much to be desired, the material that they were given to work with wasn’t exactly brilliant either. I mean, 'meagre scraps’ - who talks like that?

The film is an embarrassing misery trip. The only way to move forward with your sanity intact is to avoid the movie altogether.