I really can't stand the Because-It-Looks-Cool School of Filmmaking, and Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders could be this year's valedictorian. His obsession lies not with making sure his story makes sense or that his characters are interesting. His triumphant moments are when he gets to make a big show of how he dreadfully he overestimates his visual imagination. Lost in the expensive special effects and sloppy storytelling are the hints of a thoughtful subtext regarding the value of beauty in relation to a woman's power. But for Sanders, these moments are nothing more than a way to briefly shade his antagonist before rushing back to his one-dimensional heroine and her dull journey through pretty environments.
After marrying and then assassinating the king, the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) takes over the kingdom, and imprisons the princess Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Ravenna maintains her magical powers by sucking the youth out of innocents maidens, but it's a constant struggle to keep up her youth-maintaining mojo. However, when the Mirror-Mirror-on-the-Wall tells her that she can stay young forever if she takes the heart of Snow White, Ravenna finally decides to kill the girl who has been locked up in a tower for about eight years (thus leaving the audience to wonder why the evil queen even bothered to keep the princess alive in the first place). Snow White manages to escape (again, that only took eight years of confinement to figure out how to do so) and makes her way ...
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