On March 20, a day before the movie was released, I went to see Disney’s latest live action remake, “Snow White”. The friend I watched it with enjoyed the film; however, I did not. I believe that the movie just didn’t quite capture the essence of Snow White and it felt like a useless, modernized remake of the original. There was nothing really added to this movie to differentiate it much from the original, which made it hard for the movie to find its own identity. However, it did seem to focus more on Snow White and her storyline of finding herself and how to be brave. This movie is rated 1.6 stars out of 10 on IMDb and 40% on Rotten Tomatoes and I can see why. Instead, Disney should consider naming this movie “Snow White and the Seven Figure Loss.” Disney has been estimated to have lost around $115 million with this remake. Here are my thoughts as to why this movie was such a flop.
The first thing that caught my eye in the previews for this movie was lead actress Rachel Zegler as Snow White. I personally adore her. She has a wonderful, whimsical, princess-sounding voice that I thought fit perfectly for Snow White. However, it was difficult to get over that wig they put on her. Disney has so much money and they couldn’t have gotten Zegler a better hair-do? Besides that, I was also intrigued due to the controversy that surrounded her and this film in the media.
There were clips circulating the internet during 2023 of Zegler bashing Snow White, criticizing the original movie’s storyline in an interview during 2022 with Extra at the D23 Expo. She said in a joking manner, “I mean you know, the original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so…there’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. Weird! So, we didn’t do that this time.” She claimed the movie would not be entirely about the love story like the original was, and I agree that it wasn’t. However, I do believe that production may have refilmed some of the movie and added a storyline to focus more on the love story after receiving backlash when the interviews started surfacing because it was still quite prominent.
The dwarfs, or “magical creatures” as they are referred to in this movie, absolutely horrified me. If they frightened me as a 16-year-old girl, I can’t imagine the nightmares the little kids who go to see this movie will have. Disney decided to use CGI dwarves rather than casting actual actors for the roles. I understand both sides of the debate in the media: was CGI the best option, or should Disney have casted actors of short stature? Nonetheless, the voice actors did phenomenal in capturing each of the dwarves’ personalities and I loved Dopey and his admirable charm. He truly added such a bright light to this movie and quite frankly might’ve been the best part of the film all together.
When you search on Google for the description of this movie, it starts with “Fleeing from the Evil Queen,” and quite frankly, I am too. A mix between her emotionless singing and even acting diminished the character of the Evil Queen, played by Gal Godot. Angelina Jolie played a phenomenal role of her Disney villain, Maleficent, back in 2014. Gadot should’ve taken some notes from her on how to play a Disney villain. The casting for the queen could’ve been better, like Lana Parrilla who played the Evil Queen in “Once Upon A Time”. Every clip that I find resurface from Snow White on TikTok just reminds me of how emotionless it was, and she looked like she had absolutely zero thoughts behind her eyes. It was a big disappointment and was such a sad waste of potential.
If you are wanting to go see this movie, wait until it comes onto a streaming platform at home. Do not waste your money unless you like to sit in a theater with a bunch of Disney adults or children while listening to Zegler go on what seems to be endless tangents of believing in yourself or some nonsense. It was almost like I was sitting in an anger management counseling class. It got to a point where I was honestly rooting for the apple. Maybe if she stayed in the enchanted coma we would’ve been saved from this unnecessary Disney remake.
All jokes and harshness aside, Zegler did well with what she was given and there were some aspects I did enjoy. But I do regret spending $11 to go and see this movie.
I give it an overall 2/5.
