“Expensive Piece of Nothing”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

 

Snow White and the Huntsman is the second movie about Snow White to come out in two months, and the title indicates that Hollywood is running out of variations on how to make each one different.

Instead, the filmmakers should be concerned about how to make each one better, because this one isn’t.

This time, the evil Queen is played by Charlize Theron, and she even gets a name, Ravenna.

The Huntsman is played by Chris Hemsworth, whom you will recognize as the actor playing Thor in some other action movies, but he doesn’t get a name, just a back story.

And the grownup Snow White is played by Kristen Stewart, whom you will recognize from a lot of other movies.

Once again, we see how it all began, and after Ravenna becomes the stepmother of young Snow White, Ravenna tells her, “I could never take your mother’s place.”

And once again, Snow White is placed in prison by the Queen, high up in the north tower of the castle.

My comment was “Boring!” even before the movie got one-third of the way through.

So, the variation this time is not that the Queen has the Huntsman take Snow White out into the woods to kill her, but Snow White escapes from the castle and the Queen has the Huntsman go into the woods to find Snow White and bring her back.

Now, Charlize Theron chews the scenery as Ravenna, the evil Queen, and that is not easy to do when the scenery is made out of stone walls.

By this time the movie has become a swords and sorcery story, and the woods contain all sorts of menacing things and even a monster.

Finally! About two-thirds of the way through, the dwarfs show up, but right away you notice that there is something strange about them, and the camera doesn’t stay on all of them long enough for you to count them.

Sure enough, you were right, and later in the story an explanation solves the mystery.

Another weird thing about the dwarfs, however, is that you get the nagging feeling that when they are shown in closeup, you think that you recognize the actors playing them, but those actors aren’t actual little people.

Snow White and the Huntsman is an expensive piece of a nothing movie.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”