(SPOILERS AHEAD!)
One of the least-anticipated live-action Disney remakes was Snow White. Be it due to antifeminist or super feminist (depends who you ask) remarks made by Rachel Zegler about the character and the original 1937 film or due to the pro-Zionist/pro-Israel stance of Gal Gadot or due to the removal of the entire concepts of “dwarfs” from both the title of the film and the plot of the film, Snow White was a box office flop waiting to happen!
Directed by Marc Webb and written by Erin Cressida Wilson, Snow White is, in many ways, the story we’re familiar with. A king and queen (played by Hadley Fraser and Lorena Andrea) rule a prosperous, peaceful kingdom while raising their young daughter, Snow White. When the queen dies, the king marries the Evil Queen (played by Gal Gadot). The king then departs to fight a war of sorts, but never returns and is presumed dead. The Evil Queen then relishes in taking over the kingdom, forcing the farmers to be her soldiers, and letting her subjects starve. Her main obsession is her beauty, so much so that she has a Magic Mirror (performed by Patrick Page) who often tells her that she’s the fairest of them all. When Snow White gets older (now played by Rachel Zegler), the Magic Mirror informs the Evil Queen that Snow White is now the fairest of them all resulting in the Evil Queen plotting to kill her. Snow White ends up running away and soon meets and befriends the seven dwarfs “magical beings of the forest” (performed by Andy Grotelueschen, Jason Kravits, Andrew Barth Feldman, Jeremy Swift, Martin Klebba, George Salazar, and Tituss Burgess).
I went in this film with very low expectations and was honestly pleasantly surprised with most of it. My favorite thing was the production design and art direction! Everything looked so richly colorful! The costumes were a delight to the eye, especially the signature dresses of Snow White and the Evil Queen! The overall look of the film made it enticing enough to want to keep watching!
That’s not to say that everything in the film looked great. The CG done for some of the animals seemed very AI-esque and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were indeed generated by AI! Also, the facial capture of the dwarfs, sorry, the “magical beings of the forest”, isn’t pretty to look at! And while we’re on the subject, I don’t see why they don’t refer to them as dwarfs! For all practical purposes in the film and to the audience, they are dwarfs! And had they embraced the fact that they were dwarfs, they would have been able to provide work for dwarf actors instead of giving the roles to non-dwarf actors! I dunno, it just feels very silly to me.
I thought the acting in the film was surprisingly good overall! Rachel Zegler performed and sung beautifully as I always expect from her! Gal Gadot gave a surprisingly believable performance (although it’s incredibly ironic how she plays a character taking over a land, not caring about the people living in that land, and being told by those people at the end of the movie to leave…just saying). The dwarfs, sorry, the “magical beings of the forest”, performed well as well although I wasn’t super fond of Grumpy’s voice (interestingly enough, this is Martin Klebba’s third Snow White-based film after Snow White: The Fairest of Them All and Mirror Mirror). Nor was I fond of the fact that Dopey actually speaks by the end of the film as he’s portrayed as having been too scared to speak before rather than being unable to.
Another complaint I have is that Snow White never dreams of a prince in this film! I’ve often defended Snow White’s character and defended the idea that there’s no shame in wanting love and romance and this has always been an issue with some feminists regarding the character. As a result, in this film, we have no prince and instead get a character named Jonathan (played by Andrew Burnap) who leads a band of rebels in the forest. They protest the Evil Queen’s leadership and still believe the king is still alive somewhere. Snow White and Jonathan meet, have annoying banter, and end up falling in love, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter in this film.
Yes, he kisses her to awake her from her slumber after she eats the poisoned apple giving to her by the Evil Queen in her old hag garb (while throwing in a line about this in a previous song to assuage the critics who view his kiss as an act of rape rather than awaking someone in a coma by whatever medical means are available at the time), but that’s really it. I actually thought he was gonna be a Prince in disguise who left his kingdom to stand up for justice! I felt that would have been better plotwise and at least keep the concept of a prince in the film, but nope; he’s just a rebel leader.
Many scenes in this film pay tribute to the original such as when Snow White is running for her life through the forest which is amazingly done!
I even like the nods to the original animation like how Snow White famously dances. The choreography in this film is quite good and I do enjoy some of the new songs composed for the film by Pasek and Paul. All Is Fair is a really good villain song and I do enjoy Princess Problems! I wasn’t super fond of the new lyrics they added to older songs such as Heigh-Ho. And I really wish they had included Bluddle-Uddle-Um-Dum (The Dwarfs’ Washing Song), I’m Wishing, and Someday My Prince Will Come. I get why they got rid of the latter two since there’s no prince, but it still makes the film feel incomplete as these songs are such a staple to the original film! It’s kinda like remaking The Lion King and not including Circle of Life and Hakuna Matata! And while they briefly keep in The Silly Song, it’s way too brief!
Some scenes in the film just sucked like the Queen’s transformation into the old hag! It’s so underwhelming and has nothing on the original! They also don’t have Snow White offering to help cook and clean for the dwarfs, sorry, the “magical beings of the forest”. Even though plotwise, it would make sense for her to do so since she was still working in the castle and would have offered to do the same for the dwarfs, sorry, the “magical beings of the forest”, as an act of kindness for letting her stay with them. They do try somewhat to keep Snow White feminine in the film, but the main focus of the film is her being a leader more than anything else.
My biggest issue with the film was the ending! After Jonathan awakes Snow White, there is still more to the film! Why didn’t they have the Evil Queen die before this happened? I mean, I know why since they’re not promoting the romance aspect, but still, I’m annoyed! Instead they all go towards the castle and the villagers randomly follow Snow White in doing so. The Evil Queen even gives Snow White an opportunity to kill her which she doesn’t take. And again, I’m annoyed! Snow White is the actual princess and she had legal right in this kingdom to apply penal law upon threats to oppressors in her kingdom and oppressors to her people. In my book, she would have every right to kill the Evil Queen when given the chance! But instead, the Evil Queen dies in a Dorian Gray-esque fashion when she breaks the Magic Mirror.
Even the dwarfs, sorry, the “magical beings of the forest”, seem pretty pointless at the end of the film despite being part of the climax. I dunno, I just felt this whole ending needed a big rewrite.
All in all, I had a lot of thoughts about this remake! In ways, it surpassed my expectations and genuinely surprised me as to how much I liked the stuff I liked! But the parts that bothered me really bothered me and left me unhappy. While this wasn’t a bad remake, this will never ever compare with the original 1937 film that started it all!
So, my final score for this film is 27/35 = 77.14% (C+) !
The next review will be posted on May 5, 2026.
My Live Action Disney Project 