The idea of live-action remakes has already become old news, and Snow White continues to show us that they continue to be unnecessary, adding nothing to the original.

Growing up in the late 90s/early 2000s, I was raised on the Disney Renaissance movies.  I do not really have a nostalgic feeling for Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs like I do for Aladdin and Mulan.  So when it was announced that Disney’s newest entry into their live-action remake catalogue, I didn’t have as much of a visceral reaction like I did when the Renaissance films got their live-action remakes.  I don’t really have a strong positive nor negative reaction to the original animated film; it was just a fine movie that I had a nice feeling towards for what it did for full-length animated filmmaking.  And it should have just stayed as an animated film.

Snow White follows a pretty similar story to the original, with the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot) is jealous when her magic mirror (Patrick Page) says Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is the fairest in the land.  The Evil Queen then sentences her huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to kill her in the forest, which he refuses to do, telling her to run away far into the woods and never return.  She stumbles upon a cottage home to seven mining dwarfs, who allow her to stay the night.  The major changes from the original include the love interest Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) being a bandit instead of a prince and how the Evil Queen is conquered in the end.  It is not these plot changes that cause the film to drag necessarily, but how everything is executed.

The performances are all over the place, making it hard to follow the story throughout.  Rachel Zegler is the epitome of a Disney Princess and deserves a second chance to play a character like this again.  Her voice is made to sing these original songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Noble Paul and she genuinely seems to be having a great time with this role.  The “Whistle While You Work” sequence is the only scene that gave me the same joy I feel while watching an original Disney animated film, and that is thanks to the magic Zegler brings to the screen.  She is a shining light in this sad excuse for a Disney remake.

Gal Gadot, on the other hand, does next to nothing the entire time.  The Evil Queen is such an icon for being petty that a girl is prettier than her that it drives her insane and I love that.  Gadot does not give a single facial expression that conveys this feeling throughout the entire film.  You can tell in certain scenes that she was trying to go for something sultry-esque and it just never landed.  It’s fascinating to watch this film where Zegler is the perfect definition of what a Disney Princess should be while Gadot is the exact opposite of what a Disney Villain is.  The villains are just as, if not maybe more, popular as the princesses and when Gadot gives nothing to this icon you are left feeling more disappointed than anything else.

The rest of the cast is fine.  They do not add anything to the film but their presence doesn’t necessarily bring it down either.  Andrew Burnap as Jonathan, a bandit Snow White meets in the castle as he’s stealing bread – has cute chemistry with Zegler in their scenes together, but his gang of fellow bandits could have been left out as their presence did not impact the story.  There is one that has any importance so he could have been left in, but the others were basically nonexistent.  The famous dwarfs are CGI into the film with a weird uncanny valley feeling that reminded me of the animated characters from The Polar Express.  It was cutely creepy back then but the fact that animated “real people” has not improved in 20 years is upsetting.  The film should have either leaned more into the magical caricature of the dwarfs or made them actual people because this in-between CGI does not work.

The original film was transformative for animation not just because of its length but also because of how beautifully it was drawn.  You are dropped into a fantastical version of the real world that is oozing with magic.  When it comes to the setting in the remake, there is still a sense of magic but the world does not feel lived in.  there are some beautiful shots that feel empty because of this too pristine feeling.  While it is more bright and colorful than the original, it does not add any magic to the final product.

A lot of songs are added that do nothing for the film.  By the third song, I was sick of them because they felt like it was not helping the story move forward.  The new songs come from the songwriting duo of Pasek and Paul, known for The Greatest Showman and Dear Evan Hansen.  You can tell that there were a lot of inspirations from the latter, so fans of the duo will probably enjoy them.  Some of the songs also felt out of place for a film like this.  The songs for Gadot did not do her nonexistent singing voice any good and the type of songs she was singing did not match the tone of her character.  It is off putting when the Evil Queen breaks out  into a pop-like song as she is talking about hunting down and killing Snow White.  If she played the character campier, it would have made sense.  Even as someone who loves musicals, it was too much musical.

The pacing of the film is one of the biggest reasons why the film fails.  Even though they try to make it appealing for kids, the added narration tells you everything you need to know instead of just showing you.  Kids are able to pick up on a lot more in films than adults seem to think and this film seemed to forget that.  If you have a strong enough story, kids will follow it.  None of the scenes seemed to flow well together either.  Some went by in a blink of the eye and others felt as if they would never end.  This is why people will not be able to keep up with your film, and you cannot use creating it for kids as an excuse.

With a little script rewrite, I think this could work very well on stage instead of the big screen.  The songs come from Broadway songwriters and would work better with theater actors performing them.  You are able to suspend your disbelief more easily in the theater compared to a film, and this would have made it a much more enjoyable story to take in.  The entire time I was watching, I was picturing how it should have been written strictly for the Broadway stage.  The scenes are perfect for a stage setting and could have thrived in a different medium.

Disney is at its best when they put all of their effort into original projects instead of focusing on easy cash grabs that are starting to backfire on them.  I am not the first in saying this, but every time one of these remakes is in the works, a part of my childhood dies inside.  Animation is a beautiful art form that needs to be treasured, not remade.

Grade: C

Oscar Prospects:
Likely: None
Should Be Considered: None

Where to Watch: In Theaters