Looks good, but has no substance
|||THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR
DIRECTOR: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
CAST: Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain
CLASSIFICATION: 10-12 PG V
RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
CRAMMED full of distracting visual delights, The Huntsman: Winter’s War stupefies its audience into submission with gorgeous geegaws and eventually Charlize Theron hamming it up for all she is worth.
So, it takes a while to realise that there isn’t really much happening. The film is basically an amazing production design concept in search of a plot, a storyline, even just a bit of a thread that makes you want to know what happens next. Unfortunately, the predictable cliches and huge plotholes are wasted on the under-used talent. Chris Hemsworth attempts a weird Scottish accent, Jessica Chastain slips in and out of we don’t know what, while Emily Blunt goes for slow and low monotone to show how misunderstood and lonely she really is.
Director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) had left the production over creative differences (he probably was wondering how to make a film about a guy whose best feature is that he is good at swinging an axe) and was replaced by the visual effects supervisor from the Snow White film, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. So, all the faults critics are finding with the film do rather begin to make sense.
The story starts before the events of Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and wanders around an apparently not-so-cold but still icy land for a few minutes, then zooms forward to what happened after Snow White got rid of Ravenna.
Theron returns as Ravenna – yes, I know Snow White got rid of her in the previous movie – and we meet her sister, Freya (Blunt). Turns out, back in the day, while Ravenna took possession of the magic mirror, Freya flees to a (presumably) northern kingdom where she turns into an icy one after she is betrayed by her one true love.
Freya forbids any of the children she steals (the hints at the original Snow Queen fairy tale are welcome, but don’t really go anywhere) to fall in love so it is a big deal when Eric (Hemsworth) and Sara (Chastain) hook up. These two are both trained huntsman and the forbidden romance angers Freya to the point where she has them killed, which is how Eric ends up washing down a river and one day helping Snow White escape a similar fate.
The trailer already tells you Sara also survives, but why, we don’t really know because the lack of chemistry between Chastain and Hemsworth makes both their spared lives kind of incidental rather than germane to the plot.
Bring on the cheesy dialogue, overly-long exposition and way too much walking and then eventually all the scenes from the trailer happen at the end of the film.
Ultimately, a pointless and unnecessary foray into the huntsman’s backstory, the film’s inspired costume design and gorgeous art concepts get a star each because “wow”. Intricate hair designs and a detailed forest sequence of cute little pixies and brilliant creature design all in search of a home don’t, however, an amazing story make.
And what, pray tell, was the point of Aslan narrating the movie? If the narrator has to tell you what is going on in the movie and provide the emotional motivations then why make the movie? Just write a book already.
If you liked Frozen or season three of Once Upon a Time, you will like this.