The Huntsman: Winter’s War

The Huntsman: Winter’s War is one of the worst film’s I’ve seen so far this year.  I consider this a shame because so many talented individuals are involved with this film from the director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan to the performances by Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman and Jessica Chastain as Sara.  The film while cohesive is a complete mess as it functions as both a prequel and a sequel to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman.  The prequel section of the film involves the evil queen Ravenna played again by Charlize Theron having a sister named Freya played by Emily Blunt.  Freya falls in love with a man and becomes pregnant and has a child.  Ravenna is not happy about Freya having a child because it deeply interferes with Ravenna’s goal of conquering all of the kingdoms that exist.  Ravenna as a result of her anger at Freya’s decisions does something truly wicked which causes Freya’s warm heart to grow extremely cold.  Freya then proceeds to conquer many kingdoms and she does that with the help of orphaned children who become warriors.  One of them is more skilled than all the others and he is given the title of Huntsman.  The sequel portion sees the Huntsman hunting for the mirror from the first film only to discover the thought to be deceased Ravenna is still alive and wants revenge against the Huntsman for his part in helping Snow White in the duologies first entry.

I’ve never been much for fairytales but this is a film that from the moment the news broke of its impending existence I felt a sense of dread as it looked to be a shameless cash grab of reused ideas.  Don’t get me wrong I have no problems with a film being a cash grab, I just despise lazy writing and poor written and poorly constructed and characters and that’s a lot of what this film provides the audience.  The only character audiences have formed a connection with is the Huntsman and that’s purely based on the fact that he was the other star of this duologies previous entry.

As far as performances go this film has some of the biggest stars but their talent is wasted.  The sheer fact that the characters from this film are obviously darker takes on characters we already know.  Freya is a play on Elsa and Ravenna is obviously a play on Malificent from Sleeping Beauty which is odd considering the evil queen is a snow white character.  Blunt being cast as Frey is a major misstep because I feel she would be much better suited as the heroine of this story.  Hemsworth is only acceptable but he’s basically portraying this character as if he were Thor with a sword.  There is no personal connection that can be had with this character as he is given no actual room to grow.

The main issue I have with this film is that even though there is a competent story at work within the film, no one goes out of their way to make moments in this film feel unforgettable.  It is literally business as usual.  Action that doesn’t really have any stakes involved with characters that have no personality.  This is a shame as I believe this take on Snow White could really have legs if writers and directors truly decided it was worth their time and effort to do some actual world building.  What audiences are given with this film is trite entertainment that barely manages to expand much upon the dark theme introduced in the first film.  I hope this is the last I see of the Huntsman and the characters of this mythology for some time.