Official Website

Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

Writers: Evan Spiliotopoulous, Craig Mazin

Runtime: 114 min

Main Cast:

• Chris Hemsworth as The Huntsman
• Charlize Theron as Ravenna
• Emily Blunt as Queen Freya
• Jessica Chastain as Sara

Review: Faith & Marie

Made as both a prequel and a sequel to Snow White and The Huntsman, the film begins years before the first movie and offers the audience a look into the life of Eric the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth).

Tweet

Once upon a time the Evil Queen from the first movie, Ravenna (Charlize Theron) ruled side by side with her sister Freya (Emily Blunt). When Freya’s baby is killed in a “mysterious fire,” she then fulfills the legacy of all the women in her family and manifests super powers which pretty much turn her into Elsa from Frozen. With her heart as cold as her hands, Freya leaves her sister to start her own kingdom. She decides to fill the hole for the loss of her baby by kidnapping local children and training them to become part of her own army, which she calls her huntsmen. Eric the huntsman grows up alongside Sara (Jessica Chastain), and they share the one thing forbidden in Freya’s kingdom, LOVE! When Freya learns of the lovers betrayal she breaks them apart and Eric is made to think Sara has been killed.

So begins then the story of Snow White and the Huntsman which is when this film then picks up some time later. Long story short, Eric and two dwarves (Nick Frost and Rob Brydon) go off on a quest for the magic mirror from the first film, and along the way they meet some lady dwarves (Sheridan Smith and Alexandra Roach). They then discover Sara isn’t dead but is in fact mad at Eric, thinking he abandoned her, and then they wander into some woods where they fight goblins and then they go to the north and fight some evil queens.

What We Liked:

What we really liked about this whole movie is how clearly this film is aimed at women. From the constant romance to the general fierceness of the female characters, this is a film that is clearly targeting an audience that loves fantasy just as much as the men do. We believe this is really great. We just wish that the filmmakers understood that women like great scripts as much as they like all these other things. We also liked the second act, where everything gets silly and light-hearted and we were reminded of Willow; ie, a movie that’s pretty bad but is engaging in its own way.

What We Didn’t Like:

You know what is completely annoying, when a movie distinctly has NO PLOT. The reality is that The Huntsman: Winter’s War did not actually have a plot and so just describing the characters leads to an outline of the whole film. It’s a series of some “I don’t know” connected events that more or less are attached by the passage of time. It’s a loose-made-movie like they just kept on making up stories as they went along. And that looseness extends to the structure of the whole movie. Each of the film’s acts feels like a totally disconnected thing unto itself. The first act, a dirge of sorrow, is kind of a bummer. The third act, where the two queen sisters have a magical cat fight, is almost campy enough to be great. It gets right up to the right level of camp but just misses the boat.

 

Images Courtesy of IMDB