Why do they do this to themselves?
Film Makers, take note, hyping up your film for a full year before it's release is never a good idea! Invariably you'll create unreachable audience expectations and get slammed by the critics the second the film opens!
While there are many things to praise the film for, not least of all the CGI which managed to tread that fine line between fantasy and reality very well, there were just as many things to criticise.
Let's start with their casting choices...
Did no-one give Ms Stewart the memo that this wasn't another Twilight film, or does she only know how to play pale, whiny victims? Obviously I can't speak for every film she's been in, (I have a low tolerance level for "stars" who think their mere presence on a film-set makes them an actor) but it does seem that wherever she crops up someone is trying to kill her...even as far back at 2002s "Panic Room" (when I couldn't decide if her character was a boy or a girl) there she was; pale, complaining, tantalisingly close to death...
But let's be fair, she was not the only daft choice the casting team made, and support group "Little People of America" agree with me on this one! Why, oh why would you cast hammed-up "stars" like Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Ian McShane to play dwarves when there are actors like Peter Dinklage out there who could act them off the screen? Anyone who has seen Dinklage's portrayal of Tyrion Lannister on HBO's "Game of Thrones" series can attest to his brilliance, and if you're still not sold then I appeal to you to watch one of my favourite films "The Station Agent", you won't be sorry!
However, actors aside there are other problems with this fairy-tale adaptation, perhaps most troubling to me is that they don't have a clear idea what market they want to pitch to...
Is this a re-telling of the Disney-fied fairytale aimed at children? They kept their rating as low as possible to open it up to that audience, so maybe...
Or were they hoping to get the young female teen market by casting the tiresome Ms Stewart and giving us some eye-candy in the form of Chris Hemsworth?
Perhaps this was meant to be a more fantasy-based true telling of the original Grimm's fairytale, (I confess what I had hoped for) no doubt hoping to capitalise on the recent successes of the like's of Game of Thrones, in which case where was the gore? The Blood? The guts? How can you tease us with acting heavyweights like Charlize Theron, talking about consuming Snow White's heart, but then not provide us with that blood-dripped imagery?
Surely one of the fundamentals of any successful film, particularly an adaptation of such a hackneyed story, is to know your audience and pitch accordingly? It's very rare a film can genuinely appeal to so many different markets, and sadly, in this case, I think it failed to deliver on any level.
UK rating: 12a
Year of release: 2012
Genre: Action Adventure Drama
Director: Rupert Sanders
Starring: Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth
Rating: 2 / 5
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