Review: The Huntsman

It's obvious to say it, but expectations can have a huge effect on how we receive a movie. Expectations were not high for the original Snow White and the Huntsman, which may have helped its success -- it wasn't as bad as yet-another-Snow-White-adaptation could have been, and included some really nice visuals around a collection of bankable actors.

Even with low expectations, however, I felt that it was unimpressively bland enough to characterise with the "genie's wish gone awry" kind of story: "Oh, you want more epic fantasy movies? Here's yet another gritty re-imagining of a done-to-death fairytale. You want a strong female lead? Sure, but we'll slather her arc with generic Chosen-One portentousness and cast Kristen Stewart."

As you might be beginning to tell, I wasn't a fan. Still, including the aforementioned big-budget visuals, there were aspects to the movie that were quite good -- such as Charlize Theron's scenery-chewing Evil Queen or James Newton Howard's magical score. Not enough to raise my hopes high for The Huntsman: Winter's War, but enough to get me into the cinema.

The story of The Huntsman opens with a prologue establishing the Snow Queen (a naked attempt to rip off Elsa from Frozen) showing us why she steals children to create an army of huntsmen with which she can TAKE OVER THE WORLD. Going on for about ten minutes too long and broken up with Liam Neeson's overly explanatory narration, the film then awkwardly leapfrogs the events of Snow White and begins in earnest.

Positives, Mitchell, stay on the positives. Like last time, JNH's original score sets the mood appropriately and has some beautiful stand-out moments. What's more is that, with some exceptions, the colour palette is wider -- including a creative twist on the enchanted forest of the previous film that adds an Amazonian flavour. The costumes again, like last time, are all detailed and interesting in their own ways and the computer generated effects have a baroque kick.

So it's safe to say that the MVPs of The Huntsman are the production designers, because once you move past the look of the film it gets a bit murkier. At times, I would have said this movie felt like it came out of 2008 or 2009 in the wake of the Writer's Guild of America strike: the actual script of The Huntsman feels written without writers. Here and there are some good ideas but they are strung along with the most basic Joseph Campbell drudgery without any of the finesse required to turn it into an actual narrative. Hero? Check. Conflict? Check. Retrieving the Sword (or Mirror, as it is)? Check. Symbolic Death? Check. The Road Back? Check.

These are milestones intended to guide the story, not to make up the substance of it. The Huntsman is clearly trying at points to create a screw-ball rom-com atmosphere a la The Princess Bride, but without compelling characters and the growth thereof, the script is so inconsequential that there is no depth for the leads to find in their roles (Chris Hemsworth and Theron are back as the Huntsman himself and the Evil Queen respectively, with newcomers Emily Blunt as the Snow Queen and Jessica Chastain as Sara, the Huntsman's lover). The fact is, none of the characters have any perceivable character arc.

This is kind of essential in an adventure story.

I don't ask for anything major, just any change at all (and falling in love doesn't count: that's practically law in a fairytale). The Huntsman? Same at the end as he is at the start. Sara? She appears to have been on a journey, but it's just running in place and she ends the movie the same way she started. The villains? Emily Blunt at least has some kind of drama, but it's so telegraphed beforehand that even the characters don't seem to treat the twist as very much at all.

The worst part of this is that it's actually making me pine for Snow White from the previous movie. It may have been a generic Chosen One arc, but at least she grew and changed over the course of the story. Of course, this leads us to the elephant in the room that even the movie thinks is an elephant in the room: the missing major characters from The Huntsman's predecessor. Every time someone mentions Snow White's kingdom, the movie suddenly turns into a made-for-TV spinoff. "That stuff totally happened, it's just off screen!"

Not helping the made-for-TV tone, the action scenes are so perfunctory as to be almost non-existant. Forget the most boring use of a "rickety rope bridge sequence" that I can think of in an adventure film, the fist fights and clashing swords are cut as though to obscure each action as much as possible.

Don't get me wrong: I don't mean the incomprehensible shaky-cam nonsense of dudebro action flicks -- the actual framing of The Huntsman is decent. No, what this film does is more perplexing.

In a normal fast-cutting action scene, the idea is to draw the eye to an action by setting it up, and then follow it through, using the momentum to draw the eye to the next action. What The Huntsman does is like the opposite.

Instead of cutting from action to action, the actual actions themselves take place between the cuts and we're left with just the setup and the results. This seems to be a symptom of the greater issue at play where in The Huntsman there just isn't a lot of variety in shot length -- it's like the filmmakers were worried that the audience would get bored if there wasn't a completely new frame every few seconds.

Even given all these complaints, the movie isn't the absolute worst. It's inoffensively okay, not bad. In a world where Batman v Superman is so divisive, The Huntsman at least tries to please.

I only wish it had tried harder.

Being charitable, I'd say The Huntsman earns 2 / 5 stars.