Snow White (2025)

Written by CinemaSerf on March 26, 2025

Ouch! Now this was always going to be a difficult story to imaginatively reimagine, and I do wonder just who Disney thought this was for as it quite radically alters the timeless fairy tale and augments it with some remarkably unremarkable power ballads and set piece choreography that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a barn dance. This iteration of the story pretty much abandons the fantasy elements of the original one and tells us of a wicked queen who has tricked her way onto the throne and turned the princess “Snow White” (Rachel Zegler) into something more akin to a royal “Cinderella”. Luckily for her, she encounters the enthusiastic bandit “Jonathan” (Andrew Burnap) who has broken into the palace to pinch some spuds, and next thing they are both trying to stay one step ahead of the Queen (Gal Gadot) who is narked  by her mirror telling her she’s just plain ugly so she wants them deceased! It does swing by the brothers Grimm every now and again, and there are seven singing dwarves to “work the whole day long”, but even they can’t breathe much life into this surprisingly mundane exercise in superb technical creativity but otherwise lacklustre amateur stage theatricals. The unmistakably familiar score from Messrs. Pasek and Paul keeps threatening to break into “You Will Be Found” from “Dear Evan Hansen” and aside from, perhaps, “Waiting on a Wish” the soundtrack - like the whole thing - is disappointingly forgettable as it avoids every potential hint of menace progressing through a fondue of gloop towards it’s conclusion. Thank heavens for “Grumpy” (Martin Kleppa) who is probably the only one on-screen in synch with those of us watching. If you do want to see it then cinema is definitely best. This will look and sound bland and forgettable on the telly, but will fit excellently with the other banal recent additions to Disney+.