Jeri Jacquin

Coming to theatres this Friday from director Marc Webb and Walt Disney Studios is the live-action story of SNOW WHITE.

Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is a young girl who has spent years at the hands of her evil step-mother the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot). One day while scrubbing her usual floor, she hears a noise coming from the kitchen and meets Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) who happens to be stealing potatoes. Letting him go, the castle is alerted and the next time she sees him, Jonathan is in the presence of the queen.

Realizing that the people outside the palace need help, Snow White decides to have a talk with the Queen. After that doesn’t go well, the Queen has a nice little chat with her Magic Mirror (Patrick Page) who lets her know that her “fairest of them all” status is in serious jeopardy. Deciding to fix that immediately, she orders the Huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to take Snow White out into the forest, kill her and bring back proof in a box.

Making his choice, Snow White runs away and finds herself in the house of the Seven Dwarfs. Some are not happy about her presence and other want to help her all they can but she believes that looking for her father is best. Making her way through the forest, she meets Jonathan once again and his band of followers but their meeting is cut short as palace guards are looking for her.

The Queen decides to take matters into her own hands with an apple but Snow White and her new friends aren’t about to take it lying down!

Zegler as Snow White is causing a lot of controversy but I’m betting her portrayal of this iconic princess is not going to please the larger population. For me, there is nothing that says Snow White in her portrayal and I don’t have a problem saying so. I mean you can put her in a yellow and blue dress but it doesn’t make one a Disney princess. She sings and I hear it – just not buying it. She once commented that the original 1937 SNOW WHITE was “weird” and all I can say is that the 2025 film is exactly that – weird.  

Burnap as Jonathan is a bit of a cross between Kristoff (FROZEN) and Ken (BARBIE). If you are looking for a prince, you won’t find him here. Instead, writer Erin Wilson decided to go in the opposite direction and completely remove the crown. There wasn’t enough substance in his storyline for me to find this character interesting. Kabia as the Huntsman is a good man being asked to do a bad thing. Page as the voice of the Magic Mirror is so cool with his deep voice and only one answer to the same question.

I know I’m going to get some flack here but Gadot as the Evil Queen made me laugh. Her wickedness is on point and Gadot may not be a singer but she took control and it was hilarious. It reminded me of Melissa McCarthy playing Ursula in another meh live-action remake of THE LITTLE MERMAID. Gadot looks like she is having a blast and doesn’t care one flick of her pointy nails what anyone thinks and I’m all for it.

As for the Seven Dwarfs, it seemed only three got the top roles and that’s Doc, Grumpy and Dopey. Was I impressed with the special effects? Not in the slightest.

Other cast includes Hadley Fraser as the King, Lorena Andrea as the Queen, George Appleby as Quigg, Colin Carmichael as Farno, Samuel Baxter as Scythe, Idriss Kargbo as Bingley, Jaih Betote as Norwich, Dujonna Figt as Maple and Jimmy Johnston as Finch.

The Seven Dwarfs voices include Jeremy Swift as Doc, Tituss Burgess as Bashful, Andrew Feldman as Dopey, Martin Klebba as Grumpy, Jason Kravits as Sneezy, George Salazar as Happy and Andy Grotelueschen as Sleepy.

Buckle up because this is my opinion of the film – ghastly. In their attempt to be “modern”, Disney has allowed the destruction of an iconic animated story that was always meant to entertain and delight. It isn’t the first time that Disney has done it and, sadly, it won’t be the last which makes me once again believe in a 75-year moratorium on remakes, reimaging’s – blah, blah, blah so that those of us who treasure these films can die off happy.

First, if they wanted to modernize Snow White then why not have her recognizing the abuse and gaslighting of the Evil Queen and get away to start a new life. No, they have her scrubbing floors still (and the same floor if you watch carefully). Having Snow White break free would have been more entertaining. Nope, instead, she ends up at the house of seven guys and within minutes she talks them into cleaning their house? Yeah, let’s talk reality of that here for a minute, shall we?

Second, the writer has traded a prince for a criminal because, apparently, all good girls like bad boys. I mean that’s the message it is sending. Why can’t there be a prince (and no the original prince didn’t stalk Snow White Ms. Zegler)? Nope, we get a thief who creeps around the forest with his buddies stealing. He meets Snow and suddenly he wants to be a good guy because she makes him see the error of his ways? Good gawd please stop – I’ll take a “stalking” prince any day.

Next, the songs sound so familiar, I mean oddly familiar. While waiting for the film to start, the theatre piped in songs from the film and I actually heard one song that sounded like it was from MOANA. The only song I just loved was Gadot’s staircase stage production because she made it fun to watch and it did make people laugh.

Finally, I took my 10-year-old granddaughter to see the film and within 10 minutes she leaned over to me and said, “Naynay, I’m disappointed and bored”. Keeping my own feelings inside I replied, “well, lets wait for the dwarfs, they should be fun.” Okay, so I had hope for the disillusioned kid who waiting so long to see the film and wanted so much more. After the film was over, we spoke about it and her list of reasons for not caring for it were longer than my own. Her biggest disappointment was in the change of Dopey, she said she will “never, ever” accept that change.

All of this being said, I do feel that this ‘version’ of SNOW WHITE is for the kids young enough not to know that sometimes adults need to be told no!  Because kids, just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean the rest of us think you should.

In the end – the fairest of them all?

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