Review: "Snow White" exceeds expectations, but that's not saying much
Friday, March 21, 2025 at 8:30PM 
When was the last time the live-action remake of one of Disney's animated properties presented something worth watching? One supposes Cruella had those Jenny Beavan-designed Oscar-winning costumes to recommend it for, and Winnie the Pooh was alright in its melancholic tone. By my account, the last wholly successful of these enterprises was Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella, released a whole decade ago this year. Part of it stemmed from a willingness to deviate from the original, an understanding of the tale's inherent qualities beyond its value as nostalgia fodder, and the lavish production values courtesy of Dante Ferretti and Sandy Powell.
The latter is back to Disney's mercenary recycling scheme with Snow White, a project that harkens back to Cinderella without reaching the same modest heights. Sandy Powell innocent, though. Well, mostly…
Released in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was both a proof of concept for the Walt Disney Studios and the culmination of American animation up to that point in film history. It's remarkable how well it holds up, its artistic merits as evident today as they were 88 years ago, craftsmanship so mind-boggling it still inspired awe in whoever looks upon the film. In other words, Disney's first Snow White feature adaptation remains a testament to the glory of animation as a medium in itself, not a limited facsimile of live-action. One wonders if the directors Disney keeps hiring to shepherd their remakes have the same respect for animated pictures. Looking at the past decade and a half of misbegotten redundancy… I think not.
That said, by virtue of Erin Cressida Wilson's script and its deviations from the '37 classic, director Marc Webb isn't beholden to going the shot-by-shot remake route for Snow White. Thank heavens, for that would be a recipe for disaster. And even in moments where such an approach could be justified, he eschews the copy-paste mania, evoking the original images without reproducing them outright. The worst instances, those that came closer to puerile Xeroxing, center Gal Gadot's Evil Queen. Then again, most of the movie's biggest issues concern the villain, starting with the actress' catastrophic performance and continuing on to the piss-poor original song Pasek and Paul devised for a character that was fine without a signature tune. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First things first, Snow White finetunes its heroine's origin story to avoid some racist nitpicking about leading lady Rachel Zegler not being as white as the whitest snow. Instead, the princess of some unnamed kingdom in some unspecified past era is thus named for being born during a storm, braving the harsh winter like a ray of hope bursting into the world. She and her kingly parents' idyllic life comes to us in a musical number laden with wishing well imagery and many apple pies to sweeten the deal. It's saccharine to an excessive degree, yet the tonal lightness makes sense as a prelude to the villain's arrival, right after the queen's death with magical gifts to offer. Only her powers are directly tied to her status as fairest of them all, underlining vanity with a new urgency.
It's the same old tale, with the king disappearing far away and the new queen taking over the throne. Gone are the pies and merriment, the golden sun succumbed to the cold gray light of a CGI-ed sky. The princess is relegated to servitude under her stepmother, an old childhood dress grown too tight, hair chopped to signal the transformation of crown heir into pauper. As much as these early Sandy Powell costumes avoid copying the 1937 designs, overcompensating with lots of plaid, the coiffure is loyal to the character design of yore, justified with this symbolic gesture. Sadly, the costume designer loses that boldness when it comes to the star's primary costume and its blinding bright color scheme. In summation, a push-and-pull of nostalgic fealty, needless lore expansion, and theme park-like kitsch.
We've seen this song and dance before with the other Disney live-action remakes, but I'm glad to report the impulse for originality is a bit stronger this time around. It doesn't always produce good results, but it feels less redundant than otherwise. Consider the prince, now named Jonathan and made a former actor turned monarchist bandit who crosses Snow White's path, not as a noble savior, but as a freedom fighter à la Robin Hood, stealing from the castle's pantry to feed the dispossessed. He's much more present as his team of ex-performers, now outlaws fighting against oppression. Yes, this Snow White is about bringing power to the people, but also about reinstating the rightful bloodline to the throne – it doesn't make sense. And it doesn't need to, not really.
Other notable changes include the dwarfs, now fully fantastical beings who use magical abilities to illuminate the treasures hiding within the bedrock of their mine. While the change is well-intentioned, the textual devices feel forced. Moreover, the visual execution is downright nightmare fuel. In an effort to not exoticize a marginalized community, the filmmakers didn't cast little people, glomming the faces of average-height actors into CGI abominations that are far too proportionally cartoonish to function in the photorealist milieu. Weightless and fundamentally immaterial, even when interacting with other digital elements, their presence is uncanny, sabotaging whatever emotional response the story might impose on them. Dopey's friendship with the princess comes closest, even with some troubling act three resolutions.
And yet, it's not enough. That could be said for a lot of Snow White. Mandy Walker tries her best with the cinematography, but the prevalent style of Disney remakes and effects overdrive limit what the DP can do. One loves the commitment to saturated hues even when they're more messy than marvelous. Webber has little flair for compelling compositions, creating various frames that are vibrant for what they depict but not for how they do it. The music is pleasantly modernized, reaching its zenith with an epic take on "Heigh-Ho," but most of the original songs are too unmemorable. Only Snow White's "I Want" song registers, in part because it's so emphatically repeated as a leitmotif. In part because Rachel Zegler sings her heart out at every chance she gets.
Indeed, she's the movie's most successful element, give or take the surprisingly expressive sound design. Sincere but not irritatingly simple, the actress delivers a fairytale heroine whose bleeding heart is always worn on her blue brocade sleeve, transparent and clear-eyed. Basically, Zegler succeeds at playing a cartoon without turning her characterization into a metatextual exercise in princess movie tropes. There's no irony there, of course, which means the humor, when it comes, flops like a dying fish on land. Nevertheless, that intermittent failure has nothing on what Gal Gadot's serving. Like Zegler, she's trying to play the Evil Queen like a cartoon come to life, but her skillset is insufficient.
The picture's leading lady and Tony-award winner Andrew Burnap as Jonathan are equipped to handle the musical stylizations of the Snow White Webb has devised. Even when playing poorly constructed numbers ("Princess Problems"), they enrich the material with solid performances. Gadot can't sing the part, and neither can she tap into the overt artifice her physicality hints at, nor the 1930s Old Hollywood vamp realness Powell's sequined costumes – all color variations on the same template like an animated model – insist upon. To this day, Gadot has only excelled in the first Wonder Woman, where she could play it straight, full-throttle earnest to the point of endearing awkwardness, switching into soldier-like righteousness when needed. It was a rightful star-making turn, but it also showcased the thespian's limits. In other words, her screen presence is the opposite of a campy villainess modeled after Gale Sondergaard.
I'm not surprised at Gadot's movie-collapsing failure, but I can't entirely blame her either. This is, first and foremost, a casting issue that feels like the consequence of wanting someone that looked the part rather than someone who could do it justice. Even her old hag makeup is half-assed, and the new finale hinges too much on the conflict between the two women in a clear attempt at making the princess a more active character in the same fashion as Cinderella's 2015 upgrade. All this means that Snow White comes apart the closest it comes to the end credits, a sad fate for any movie but especially bad for a tale so predicated on the joy of a storybook happy ending. Oh well, rather than a crime against art, Snow White is merely a mediocre movie. Still, it could be worse. Remember Zemeckis' Pinocchio?
Are you going to check out the new Snow White, or have you tapped out of the Disney live-action remake industrial complex?
Reader Comments (12)
So it's eh...?
When even the great Sandy Powell is doing less than impressive work that says a lot.
I didn't hate this but found so many bad moments. Can we just stop these live action Princess movies. Obviously Cinderella is best and nothing has risen to it's level
@ Cláudio
Thanks for this, but a double review of Presence and Black Bag would have been a much better use of your time and talents. ;-)
(Gal Gadot is good, or at least well deployed, in Keeping Up with the Joneses, pre-Wonder Woman.)
I thought Gadot was ok in Death on the Nile but that was mostly because the script completely changed her character to be more likeable- in the book she is unapologetically the bad guy but here she is either saying she is sorry for what happened or has other apologizing for her.
I'd rather rip out my own teeth without anaesthetic than sit through this.
I have no understanding of the appeal of the limited Gal Gadot,I can't remember her in anything outside of those two woeful Wonder Woman films where the most expressive and interesting thing is her head band.
The racist casting controversy is duly noted here; Zegler’s bratty and absurdly misjudged behavior is not, and frankly that’s what’s doomed this movie’s marketing more than anything else.
The Little Mermaid faced the same conservative backlash (more, in fact), but it didn’t have such an entitled, tone-deaf actress at its center—and performed much better for it, financially. It’s nice to at least pretend you appreciate the source material of the $300 million movie you’ve been cast to lead, just a thought.
@DK
What was exactly "bratty behavior and tone-deaf" about Zegler?
The fact that the original Snow White was indeed outdated? Not to say borderline sexual-harrasment-y with non-consensual kissing?
Or that she's been always a staunch Palestinian cause supporter? Even before the latest war and genocide.
Or that anybody was surprised by her reaction to Trump's second election? Considering her support to the Palestinian people and that she's half Latina, she's very much entitled to those feelings.
God forbid a Latina actress has her own opinions.
I don’t think the Palestine thing is much of a factor; She and Gadot probably turn on/off just as many people with their (awkwardly conflicting) views—and at the margins. I didn’t mention that, or the election.
What’s *not* at the margins is Snow White nostalgia, and Zegler pretty thoroughly pissed off the base of Disney fans who’d want to go see a remake. Commercially, you don’t want viral clips of your “Snow White” talking about Snow White in such a dismissive, derisive, even contemptuous way.
"The fact that the original Snow White was indeed outdated? Not to say borderline sexual-harrasment-y with non-consensual kissing?"
Firstly harassment has two s's not two r's
It's a fairytale for kids,lighten up,not everything has to be viewed through an adult lens.
When did people have to start getting on their soapbox about everything and want everything revising and updating for today,some things just don't need it
Maybe Snow White was happy to be kissed by a prince and whisked off to a castle,she's a cartoon so who knows what she thinks.
It's just ridiculous to be arguing over an imaginary cartoon,when did people's escapist button get turned down so low.
Snow White is a piece of fantasy and should be viewed as such.
Can't kids go to a film now without getting an adult sized lecture.
This sort of thing baffles me.
Zegler was disgustingly disrespectful to the original movie, which was (and remains) a revolution in itself. It was Walt Disney´s baby, the basis of everything that was to come. It started a new genre in moviemaking, and it holds, technically speaking, impressively well considering its almost 90 years old.
Does she not understand what the original movie represents? For audiences across the globe for nearly 90 years, and for the Disney Empire itself? Isnt she aware thta she wouldnt even be hired by the studio if not for, partly, the original Snow White? She was arrogant, ungrateful, rude, bratty, dismissive and disrespectful.
This movie is horrendous. Appaling, disgusting CGI, ridiculous plot, horrendous editing (you can clearly see that this is two or three movies edited into one, you can see and notice the cuts and re-shoots), bad and cheap productions values, ugly colors, bad costumes, boring new songs.
And yes, not evenrything has to be endlessly dissected. This is a fairy tale. Those are, primarily, metaphors. Its not real life. Its not literal. Even the original seven dwarfs represented feelings, impulses and emotions of kids, not unlike "Inside Out"did decades after.
Fairy tales are simple because they are ancestral tales for kids, they have to be easily understood. Not everything has to be a gender studies lecture.
This movie looked insanely cheap for such an expensive budget. The descendants had better productions values.
Speaking of the Descesdants, I dont understand why they didnt hire Sofia Carson for this. She looks exacly like Snow White while also being half-latina like Zegler, can sing, has worked with Disney before and would be poliet and act grateful for the oportunity and wouldnt be the PT nightmarre Zegler has been.
I also wonder If Zegler would be tweeting "Free Palestine" were she still working would Spielberg, or, if him being who he is, she would keep her mouth shut......
Halle Bailey faced way more racism than Zegler but she was always polite, pleasant, mannered, grateful and always praised the original.
And what ended up being the point of those ridiculous supposedly revolutionary "bandits" who looked like Manson Family Members? Only two of them had lines, they added NOTHING to the story, and they were revolutionaries who wanted to restore a former monarchy with the "correct" bloodline who apparently used to run the kingdom (which has apparently only 50 people in it) as a communist utopia???? WTF????
And the Bandit love interest is Flynn Ryder from Tangled, by the way