"The Huntsman: Winter's War" - Review

Oh Please Just Let It Go

Universal Studios really wants to step up their franchise game. The Fast and Furious series has reached record numbers of revenue and their recent revival of the Jurassic Park franchise went beyond that. Where do you go next for a potential new franchise? Naturally you go to Snow White and the Huntsman, a stand alone film that received a somewhat mixed response despite its decent box office grab. Wait, your lead actress was sleeping with the director and is not coming back for this sequel? Well, do it anyway because you've got Thor as part of your cast. You can always hire a double that looks nothing like Kristen Stewart to show her back to the audience for 3 seconds to remind us that Snow White actually exists. Somewhere. Without Snow White as your lead though, what do you do that can be fresh? A prequel movie of course! Not enough room for a full story you say? Well then, let's make it a prequel and a sequel. Both! And let's ditch the somewhat unique dark tone of the original and go for more of a swashbuckling Princess Bride vibe even though the story is wrapped all around the original film. We still need something to bring in audiences though... how about you bring Charlize Theron back from the dead (for two seconds of film) and add another really angry yell-y queen who is basically angry Elsa from Frozen! Got it. Sealed and done. You've got yourself a movie!

In case you could not tell, this movie is a flipping mess. The Huntsman: Winter's War (a movie that strangely has no wars and does not take place in Winter as evidenced by the Spring meadows our characters mindlessly wander across) is a movie without a sense of pace or urgency. It meanders from moment to moment and changes tones inexplicably at random points, including the jarring moment when the movie switches from prequel to sequel. I can forgive a lot if a movie like this is at least fun, but save for a couple of mildly interesting action bits and some really great costume design for our irritable queens and warriors, Winter's War is a complete snooze-fest without any sense of purpose or identity.

The Huntsman: Winter's War begins with an origin story of sorts for Ravenna (Charlize Theron), the future evil queen from the first movie, and her now suddenly existent sister Freya (Emily Blunt). After a tragedy involving people she loves, Freya suddenly gets so angry that she becomes a murderous super powered person who can make ice and snow and she runs away into the mountainous "North" to build an army and steal children from the surrounding kingdoms to raise as "Huntsmen" for her own. In comes Eric, our title Huntsman played as a later adult by Chris Hemsworth, and Sara (Jessica Chastain), two children nabbed by Freya to train in her army. They grow up together and guess what? They fall in love. They even consummate that love in a sexy mood setting bubbly hot tub that they find somewhere in the snow covered mountains (there is no way that is a hot spring). But alas, their love is doomed because Freya has outlawed love in her kingdom so they are discovered. After some "dramatic events", the movie all of a sudden picks up 7 years later , as our Liam Neeson voiced narrator informs us, right after the events of the first movie. Ravenna has been killed by Snow White and now she is the new queen of a happy kingdom. At this point the movie completely resets its tone and almost becomes a reboot within itself and sets up a whole new plotline for Eric. Now he is a dorky wise cracking Huntsman, a complete departure from the past 1.4 movies that came before it, and he is tasked by Snow White (off screen) to hunt down the mirror from the first movie which has now been stolen by thieves. The mirror makes everyone around it go crazy and murder people so it is important for him to find it. So with a dwarf from the original movie played by Nick Frost, and some other dwarf who was not in the original who exists for sarcastic banter purposes, Eric starts his quest to find the mirror before angry Elsa in the North is able to seize it for herself.

Yikes. Writing that plot synopsis wore me out. I did not even get into the meat of the movie. That really is all introduction and it's what you should know of the plot before going in. You can see just how messy and unfocused the film is just from reading how long and random that paragraph is. It jumps to several main characters before we even meet our hunky Huntsman and even when it finally gets to him, the writers cannot seem to focus on one plot. To make up for the lack of longevity and depth of several little plots, they mixed them together in a big budget Hollywood Studio pot and served what they came up with. The tone jumps from shocking violence and vulgar language to child-targeted Disney style sentimentality. Take a shot every time someone yells something about love being evil or "love conquers all" and you will be dead within minutes. The Huntsman has no idea what it is or who it is for and that is a huge problem. As I said before, this could be forgivable in a so-bad-it's-good way if there was any energy to the writing or the directing. The pace is sometimes painfully lethargic and is at most exceedingly dull.

The performances here do not help. If you do enough digging, you can actually find out that a majority of the actors in this film were forced to be in it, regardless of its quality, either because they were in the first film or they did another Universal Studios film and their contract had locked them in for two. That was the case for Jessica Chastain, who got to be in this mess after being in the completely underrated Crimson Peak. As much as I love her screen presence, she is wasted here. Her lady warrior part is all that the name implies. There is no depth to it or sense of character. It also just does not fit her well. She struggles at times to be convincing in the role. Chris Hemsworth fares better but he uses an accent that is almost unintelligible at times. It is really muddled. It is Bane level muddled at times. That is a small nitpick compared to the real victim of this movie though. That victim is Emily Blunt. She has consistently turned in great work in films like Sicario and Edge of Tomorrow. She looks to have a hit for adults on her hands coming up later this year with The Girl on the Train. In my opinion, she is one of our best actresses working today. Sadly, her performance in The Huntsman is not good. The thin character does not help, but it is as though she went to the Jupiter Ascending school of villain-ing. She mumbles a lot and then she has SUDDEN OUTBURTS OF ANGER. It's a bad character and a bad performance, which is a sad day for everyone. At least Charlize Theron shows up for 5 minutes at the beginning and at the end of the movie to do the same schtick, but she does it with such confidence and camp that it is actually really fun to watch. It does not save the scenes that she is in, but she looks like she is relishing in the ridiculousness of it all and is having a great time doing so.

I was so frustrated once the final moments of this movie came, but then the end credits started. The same thing happened with the original. All of a sudden this amazing sequence of art direction set to an awesome song started (this time it was "Castle" by Halsey). It has this sort of bold glittery Gothic look with recurring motifs from the movie exploding into a shattered and beautiful mess. It is the same aesthetic that the trailers for both films advertised; a more stylistic and bold work of art. I cannot say that there are not small moments of inspiration in the art and production design direction in the series, but there is not nearly enough, especially in the case of The Huntsman. Despite the craziness of the scattershot script, the movie screams hollow and generic. There is nothing about them to give them any sort of identity. That has to be my biggest problem with the films and it is the most disappointing aspect. But hey, cool end credits sequences! 

Yeah. The Huntsman is a mess, but not one that can be enjoyed because of it. It is dull, uninspired, and a complete misfire. Save your money for Civil War next week. If you need good fantasy, TV has Outlander and Game of Thrones right now which are totally worth your time. If your children need something, look up some classics like The Princess Bride or The Dark Crystal. You do not need The Huntsman in your life.

Grade: D

The Huntsman is now playing in theaters everywhere.