For Reel

Director: Rupert Sanders

It comes as a surprise that, of the two “Snow White” adaptations that were released to multiplexes in the past three months, Tarsem Singh directed the kitschy family adventure Mirror, Mirror. Snow White and the Huntsman contains the remarkable visual pleasures that one would associate with his work, featuring stunningly costumed actors traversing through a bizarre dreamscape. However, as is also expected of Singh, it fails as a narrative in almost every sense (but oh, how pretty!) First-time feature filmmaker Rupert Sanders – arriving with a history in commercials – knows how to create an arresting image or twenty, but bringing any charm to his characters is a different matter entirely. While the backlash against Kristen Stewart’s acting talents is unjustified (she is perfectly suited in contemporary roles in both Into the Wild and Adventureland), as Snow White by way of Joan of Arc she is hardly inspiring, with a late-game rousing war speech landing with a thud. The other half of the titular duo is ably played by Chris Hemsworth (who is in danger of being typecast as a charismatic meathead for the rest of his career), though the script does so little to service a clumsy love-triangle that somehow even the climactic kiss of the fairy tale doesn’t register as particularly satisfying. As a cut-and-paste job of its contemporary fantasy predecessors, it is at least more visually exciting than Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, but drudging through two hours plus of otherwise humorless mediocrity is laborious.