In Theaters: Snow White and the Huntsman ***

Evaluating Snow White and the Huntsman is pretty easy.  It's all a matter of assigning grades and finding the averages.  Basically, this is a movie with A+ production values, but only C-level story telling.  That puts it solidly in the B range.  Of course, I don't give movies grades, I give them stars.  Using my grade-to-stars conversion system, a solid B is worth roughly three stars.

Everyone with me so far?  Good.

This new telling of the familiar fairy tale marks the feature film debut for director Rupert Sanders.  Apparently, from what I've gathered, his pre-Snow White directing credits have been limited to TV commercials.  He shows remarkable visual flair with his first movie, but he has a little trouble checking all the boxes in terms of story and character development.

This is a different take on the Snow White story than we're used to.  It may be more faithful to the original Grimm's fable, I really have no idea.  But, the most basic and familiar elements are all present -- magic mirrors, dwarves, poisoned apples, spell-breaking kisses, etc.

In the prologue, we learn that Snow White was the daughter of King Magnus, a noble and beloved ruler.  Her mother died while she was a small child and his father eventually marries Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who eventually turns out to be the evil queen/stepmother character that we all know and love.  Obsessed with keeping her youthful beauty and threatened by that of her stepdaughter, Ravenna locks Snow White away in the tower for many years.

Unsurprisingly, the queen is also something of a witch, possessing the power to suck the youth and beauty out of her victims in order to maintain her own.  She also converses with a magic mirror that, when spoken to, morphs into something of a cross between the T-1000 in Terminator 2 and a Dementor from the Harry Potter movies.  The scene in which the mirror is introduced is legitimately terrifying and is the first of many visual triumphs of the movie.  It's also in that scene that the mirror informs Ravenna that, by eating the heart of Snow White, she can remain young and beautiful forever.

She sends for her captive, who is now an adult (played by Kristen Stewart, the boring chick from the Twilight movies).  Snow White uses this opportunity to escape the castle and she evades the queen's men, one of which is the queen's brother (Sam Spruell), sort of angry, gross Prince Valiant type, and heads into the Dark Forest.  The queen's men won't dare enter the forest without a guide, so Ravenna hires the titular Huntsman (played by Thor, himself, Chris Hemsworth) to lead the pursuit.  As payment, the queen promises to resurrect the Huntsman's dead wife.

Thus begins the meat of the story wherein the Huntsman finds Snow White and decides to protect her instead of turning her in.  Then, they meet up with a gaggle of dwarves, all played by recognizable non-dwarf actors, including Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, and Nick Frost, their faces super imposed on the bodies of actual little people when necessary.  This led to a small (no pun intended) controversy as groups representing the interests of little people weren't happy about these casting choices.

The middle third of the story features some of the most brilliantly rendered visuals of any movie this year.  There is an outstanding showdown between Snow White, the Huntsman, and a massive troll that happens to be hiding under a bridge in the Dark Forest.  At one point, Snow White, the Huntsman, and the dwarves leave the Dark Forest and enter some kind of fairy land.  The look of this scene has all the conventions of a familiar fairy-tale landscape, yet is also stunningly original.  It is also one of the only moments in the movie where the visuals match the intended emotional impact.  If every scene in the movie were constructed so well, I'd have given it four stars.

Shortly thereafter, the movie devolves into a conventional medieval battle flick.  The charge up to the castle is competently depicted, yet it is not unique enough to set it apart.  There is some good filmmaking in these climactic moments, but we're never invested enough in the characters to really care about the outcome.

In the end, that is the major flaw of Snow White and the Huntsman and it's a big one.  The characters are all one-dimensional, no arcs, no nuance.  Perhaps that's how it has to be -- this a retelling of a classic fairy tale, after all.  Yet, from the outset, it's pretty clear that this ain't your grandfather's Snow White.  They went to great lengths to darken the story and give it a little edge, at least in terms of the visuals.  Seems like it would have been a perfect opportunity to create some internal conflicts or contradictions, to give Snow White some flaws or the Evil Queen some sympathetic moments.  But, other than a hint at a quasi-feminist explanation for the Ravenna's beauty obsession, there's none of that, which is a shame.

That said, it's clear that Charlize Theron had a ball making this movie.  People tend to forget that she's actually an outstanding actress despite some poor post-Oscar role choices. And, in this movie, it's almost like she's teaching master class in chewing the scenery...and I mean that as a compliment.  The way she hams up every scene -- speaking too loudly, over pronouncing and accenting words -- her evilness is evident from the outset and you can't help but enjoy the ride.

I don't know, perhaps my praise of this performance undermines my earlier complaint about the lack of complexity.  Indeed, had there been any subtlety to Ravenna's character, Theron's performance probably wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable.  But, in the end, it's the sum of the parts that matters most.  So, if offered, I think I would have traded the campy-but-goodness of Theron's work in the movie with an overall more compelling character arc.

In the end, this a very enjoyable, imminently watchable movie.  I'd definitely see it again, which is, I think, high praise for what is essentially just a summer popcorn movie.  Ultimately, if you liked what you've seen in all the trailers, you'll like this movie.