Should you go watch it?
Yes, but only if you want to take your kids. If not, better rent it or wait for it to air on TV.
Spoiler free review.
I wasn't expecting much when I saw this movie. I was just expecting great acting from Charlize Theron and some Lord of the rings kind of scenes. And I got all of that but still didn't like it. Actually I even got a little more than that because some of the scenes are very well put together, and there's more good acting by Thor, the dwarfs, and many more.
So why did I not like it? Well, you could guess that Kirsten Stewart's expressionless acting has a lot to do with it, and you would be right. But that is not all, or even the main factor that kills the movie. I didn't like many things:
- The one-face-to-say-it-all snow white is indeed a problem.
- The obvious "Kirsten is in no way prettier than Charlize" argument everybody is commenting. But to be fair: who is? who could have they cast as Snow White?
- Too many other movie rip-offs.
- And most importantly: lack of a cohesive history and closure on many things.
Let me expand on those last two points: the movie is so many rip-offs it becomes annoying. They not only rip-off Twilight (thing that should be illegal) and Lord Of The Rings as you expected, the rip-off Robin Hood, Stardust, Braveheart (horribly done by the way) and many more. They even rip-off a scene from
Princess Mononoke! If you haven seen THAT movie.
You should. Immediately! And that's the worst rip-off of all because it doesn't make sense, it doesn't add anything to the story, it doesn't fit, it just sucks.
Oh and they also include some Snow White in the story.
So what really kills the movie is that all those (borrowed) pieces of stories are never put together in a good way and the fact that several "important" ones are never carried to a close or just end in a bad way.
In summary: is a good looking movie, that won't make you leave the theater, that has some interesting parts but that won't leave you satisfied and won't let you connect with any character.
Spoilerish review.
As I mentioned, they do rip-off something out of Twilight. It's not hard to guess what: the love triangle. Hollywood is showing these twilighted love triangles in many movies. This was not the exception. And this one has the same exact Bella (Snow White), a better Edward (The Prince) and a better Jacob (Thor, I mean, The Huntsman)...
Show/Hide the rest of the spoilerish review
Finally about the Braveheart scene: they show a Snow White giving a speech motivating a crowd to fight against the evil queen... but it plainly sucks! When Mel Gibson did it, the speech was so good that you were ready to leave your seat and fight besides him. Now imagine a poorly written speech given by expressionless Bella... it's those kind of scenes that ruin an otherwise interesting movie.