If you are thinking about seeing “Snow White,” don’t – unless you want a good laugh.
The movie, starring Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, hit box offices on Friday, March 21 and the bad reviews came flooding in. The live-action remake received the lowest Disney IMBD score, coming in with just 1.7 stars out of 10, and a whopping 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Despite the poor reviews, “Snow White” topped box offices by taking an estimated $87.3m globally during its opening weekend — the film reportedly cost more than $270m.
Originally, the film was set to release March of 2024, but was pushed back due to the writer’s strike and other production issues. However, it sparked controversy way before that in 2022 when Zegler did an interview with Variety. “I mean it’s not 1937 anymore,” she said in the interview. “She’s not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.”
I won’t lie, I went into watching this movie with low expectations; however, it definitely exceeded them because of poor writing, performances and casting decisions.
It felt as though I was watching a musical remake of “Snow White” that theater kids in my high school could have written. At the beginning, it is revealed she was named Snow White because it snowed the night she was born — a very creative choice made by the writers.
Not to mention, every five minutes there was another song being introduced — most of which were not in the original.
Within what felt like the first 30-seconds, there was a big song and dance number to a new song called “Good Things Grow,” which was meant to signify how life was when Snow White’s parents ruled the Kingdom and allowed everyone to grow into the best versions of themselves.
Cutting from this happy song to the sudden passing of her mother with no explanation or smooth transition set a comical tone, for me, the rest of the movie. I understand that the backstory needs to move quickly to make time for the main story, but it just felt rushed.
Another misstep by the writers was having a bull horn type sound go off whenever the Queen’s guards would come looking for Snow White and the bandits in the forest. It didn’t make any sense. If they were realistically trying to catch them off guard they would not be blowing a loud horn.
However, poor writing does not excuse Gadot’s awful performance as the Evil Queen. Her outbursts of what were supposed to be anger, were pure comedy. To me, and to others laughing in the audience, it was not believable at all. There was also no need for her to be singing a song — it just seemed like a fill in song to waste more time.
The popular song from the original movie “When Will My Prince Come” was changed to “Waiting on a Wish.” The new song follows Snow White’s journey of trying to become the fearless leader she knows she can be.
Zegler’s performance was not all bad. Her singing was phenomenal, she hit all of the high notes with the necessary poise and perfection needed when playing Snow White.
Where she fell short was in the acting. The romantic chemistry between Snow White and Jonathan, the Bandit, was not believable either. The attempts at flirtatious banter to me were just cringe worthy. It also just seemed weird because of what looked liked a major age difference between Zegler and Andrew Burlap. After looking online, it seems this proves to be true. Burlap is 34 years old, while Zegler is only 23 years old.
Some of the classics such as “Whistle While You Work” and “Heigh-Ho” were still included but were sung by CGI dwarfs. Aesthetically, it was not the most pleasing to see real–life actors next to what were clearly CGI dwarfs — either it needs to be completely CGI or completely real–life people, especially when Disney could have used actors who have dwarfism to educate viewers.
Despite the movie being two-hours long it went by fast. Normally, I am waiting for these types of movies to be over out of sheer boredom, but this was not the case. I accredit this to the fast pace of the movie to poor acting simply because it enticed me to see how bad it could actually get.
“Snow White” continues to have multiple showtimes and screenings at local theaters daily. To see it for yourself, click here to find a local screening.
This story was written by Alison McMillan. She can be reached at alison.mcmillan@marquette.edu.
