Snow White And The Huntsman Film Studies Essay

In the epic action-adventure starts out with (Kristen Stewart) who plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen, her name, snow white. While the film offers an appropriately exciting take on the fairy tale that inspired it, Snow White and the Huntsman is slow at the beginning of the movie with a confused script that jumps around a bit.

Thirty minutes into the film it starts to pick up with its first action war scene against the Dark Army, an assaulting force of glass fighters. The film offers wonderful digital effects during this scheme with the soldiers shattering when struck by swords. Ravenna (the evil queen) seizes control of the entire kingdom, locks snow white up and years pass.

More drama begins to unfold as age starts to affect the Queen. In order to sustain and preserve her beauty, the Queen must draw out the essence of youth from young women. The Queen also consults with a digitally animated Magic Mirror, that very interesting to watch. As the story begins to pick up, the Mirror’s informes the Queen that Snow White is predestined to destroy her unless she devours the young girl’s heart. At this point the huntsman is introduced; his name is Eric, a widower who has lived in the Dark Forest, is taken to Queen. She orders him to lead her brother, Finn to search for Snow White. In exchange, she assures him that she can revive his deceased wife, Sarah.

The next few action scenes have high intensity with a lot of digital affects within the scary forest full of nightmares to an enormous, drooling, angry goblin that’s out to eat anyone that enters his valley. The visual effects continue as they travel through the fairy sanctuary where the fairies and animals alike dwell in harmony. The guides for Snow white and the huntsman are hefty, stocky dwarves who were snow white’s loyal friends. The actors who played these dwarfs caught me off guard while watching the film. It seems the movie producer passed over little people for the roles of the seven dwarfs.  Full-sized British actors such as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins and Ray Winstone played the roles and were shrunk using digital manipulation and had their faces digitally transmuted onto small the bodies. This took away from the realization of the seven dwarfs if you recognize any of the actors playing the seven dwarfs. I would like to have seen more of the seven dwarfs and I feel they were slightly under used.

The location of the movie took place in the beautiful United Kingdom. Some of the beach scenes were filmed near the village of Marloes which gives the movie a darker feel. The classic Snow White fairytale was set in Germany and the movie showed these German features throughout the movie. The shape of the castle, the design of the village cottages, and the “dark forest” which represented Germany’s Black Forest brought the classic story to life.

The music that was created for the movie was outstanding. It really lifted the film and stood out over the chaos of the battle scenes. The background voice that was used created tension in all the right places, and moved me to the point that I wanted to cry during the dwarf’s duet. The costumes made for the Queen were spectacular. The dresses represented power and elegance with a touch of armor for battle as the story unfolded. I would have no problem seeing it again even though I know the ending.

All in all this movie was money well spent. I would whole heartedly recommend this film. It has really given the kiss of life to the fairy tale classic, breathing new air into a new way of storytelling. The acting was well done except for Kristen Stewart playing snow-white. I would have no problem seeing watching this movie again or buying it on DVD.