REVIEW #424 Disney’s Snow White (2025)

Disney’s Snow White

Synopsis

Princess Snow White is forced to flee her castle when her evil stepmother tries to take her life. She must reclaim her kingdom with the help of unlikely allies.

My Review

Disney’s latest live action remake serves as an example of what not to do when reimagining a beloved classic. Every creative decision they made, which strayed away from the original, was the wrong choice! What was once a really simple, yet effective storyline that could entice children but retain life long fans into adulthood, became a hot mess filled with pointless sub plots, that served no purpose to the overarching narrative. This is a $200m movie and at times, it looks like a CW production with bland colour palettes and questionable costume design. The only scenes that were true spectacles were the instances where the shots were entirely CGI animation, such as the introduction to the dwarves in the mines. The ‘bandits’ were the epitome of everything wrong with this film, cringe-worthy dialogue, costume design that didn’t fit the time period and it looked like cheap options they pulled together on shoot day. Another big disappointment was the songs, Rachel is an amazing singer, capable to truly live up to the vocals from the original, yet I felt like she was underutilised, never allowed to reach her potential. 

Were there positives? I will say the dwarves were far better than I expected, I still don’t necessarily agree with the decision not to cast real actors with dwarfism just because of Peter Dinklages’s outburst, but the CGI versions were executed well and were the source of a lot of the best moments in the film. However, that being said, they essentially play no purpose in this version of Snow White, beyond a song or two and just letting her sleep in their house… I’d also say that despite a sub par performance, from an aesthetic perspective, Gal Gadot did look the part as the iconic villain. Unfortunately, the small positives are far outweighed by the negatives! I was actually excited about a few story changes for the remake, I don’t agree with like for like remakes because in that case, what’s the point. But if you are going to make changes, they need to be perfect and in this case, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Who knows, young children might get a lot of enjoyment from this, in which case, what do my opinions matter! But sometimes we need to just accept that the classic ‘Princess waiting for her Prince’ (or vice versa) is a perfectly fine trope, trying to bring in progressive themes to a classic children’s story is a recipe for disaster. The original was not ‘Anti-Woman’ like some would have you believe, if it was, then so many women wouldn’t hold it so close to their hearts.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Thanks for reading.

Film Review Club