Snow White

Director: Marc Webb

In the latest live-action remake of a Disney classic, Rachel Zegler stars as Snow White. After her mother dies and her father remarries, a beautiful  princess (Gal Gadot), who quickly turns into an evil Queen (Gal Gadot), Snow White is banished from the castle. While hiding in the woods, she finds herself in the home of seven gem-mining dwarves. Together they team up with Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), a bandit leader hiding in the woods, with the aim to reclaim the castle from the wicked Queen and restore peace to the land.

This film has stirred some controversy in the lead-up to its release, ranging from casting choices to reported tensions between its stars. I’ll leave those issues for you to decide what you think about them. For me, the real question is whether this live-action version serves a purpose. Ultimately, it’s okay, but nothing more than that. It probably also suffers in comparison to the recent behemoth, “Wicked,” which demonstrates just what a musical fairy tale can be.

There are things to enjoy. Nothing more than Gal Gadot fully embracing the pantomime villainy of the evil Queen. Both her and Rachel Zegler knock out the classics and a couple of decent, if unmemorable, new tunes.

It looks impressive, with the Snow White world nicely recreated. Although I couldn’t make out if the CGI dwarves were great, or a bit disturbing!

The story has had an update and there is a solid message around not letting those in power convince us, that looking out for ourselves is the only way to be. And by showing kindness and generosity to each other we can be better.

Admittedly, I’m not Snow White’s target audience, but it all felt a bit of a non-event. The performances are okay, and Gal Gadot is entertaining, camping it up as the evil Queen. There’s a solid message at its centre. The well-known songs are well done, the new ones are fine, and it looks good. Hopefully, it works for its target audience. But, ultimately, for me, it was a bit meh.