To Everything a Season: Beauty is my power.

Last weekend, I saw Snow White and the Huntsman. I am unabashedly disillusioned with K-Stew's acting skills, and fairy tales bug me for the most part these days, but I went to see the movie anyway. When I saw trailers for it, it looked like it was going to be an interesting retelling of the story, and I do like revisions of familiar works, if only for the appeal of unexpected novelty. I read somewhere the sentence, "People tend to remember fondly what's familiar," which, while having its many exceptions, has rung true for me more often than not when I've been paying attention. I figured Snow White and the Huntsman would have some of that going for it. As well as some jazzy special effects and some epic action sequences; can't forget those.

While I sat through this movie, though, I did not get pulled into it, like I was expecting to. You know what I mean: when you're watching a good movie, especially when you're in a theater, it's possible to simply lose yourself in the story. When I went to see The King's Speech for the first time, I was in York, England, and when I walked out of the theater, I couldn't remember out where I was. (Part of that might have been that, having just arrived in York a week or so before, I really didn't know where I was.) When I left The Avengers, I felt vaguely heroic, and I felt a strange urge to get into my boyfriend's car through the window. Those are the sort of movies I really like. I mean, I'll take a good Charlie Wilson's War or Crash even, where you're thoughts and actions are your own, just more thoughtful than they were before you entered the theater, but the ones I want to go back and see before they hit DVD are the ones that sort of wrap you up in a cocoon of this unknown world. Call me escapist. It wouldn't be the first time.

SWatH did none of that. In fact, all it really did was confuse me. Disbelief unsuccessfully suspended.

Why didn't the queen kill Snow White when she was a kid?

Instead, she locked her in a tower for somewhere around a decade and didn't let anyone go in to see her. Seems like a deus ex stupida to me, and those are easily worse than the machina ones.

What is the political structure of this kingdom?

There's a King/Queen, and, not very far away, there's a Duke. But once the King is gone, they are openly at odds with each other...and they are the only two forces...I just don't remember any kind of feudalism that works this way, real or fictional.

How does everyone know what the lost princess looks like?

If she really has been locked in a tower for 8ish years by my estimation, and she really wasn't allowed any visitors, and this really is a world without Twitter, why is it that every guard in the palace knows who she is? Why is it that the Duke recognized her on sight, having last seen her when she was prepubescent? How did those faux-Amazonian women know who she was? And then, weirdest of all, when all of these people have found a way to be all Kate-Middleton about this girl, why does the Huntsman have to be told who she is?

Why is Snow White worth money to anyone but the Queen?

There are people who like her, and some of those people are rich, but considering they thought she was dead, I don't know why they'd fork over money to people who saved her life without any warning. She keeps saying, "I'm quite valuable!" and even once offers to pay someone for their protection...but she can't possibly have any money, and how can she be sure that anyone cares enough about her to pay for her safety? Especially given that, as a princess and someone who's been locked away from the world for most of her life, she doesn't really understand how money works anyway.

There are other questions I have, but they are more spoiler-tastic, so I'd rather leave them for a less in-your-face place (because, though it is a fairy tale, so you presumably know the gist of the ending, there are some details you might now know). If you want to talk about the movie more, leave a comment and I'll definitely respond.

I've read some reviews that talk about how this movie is feminist because the moral is that a the power a woman can gain power through the strength of her character is worth more than that which she can get by her outward beauty. I don't think I buy that. While I personally think K-Stew has some weird eyebrow things going on and looks cross-eyed a lot (on purpose or not, I don't know...) I still think she fits into the category of American-flavored beauty: slender, tallish (but not too tall) nice hair (when it's clean), good skin, etc. And coming out of the Twilight saga, it's obvious that the majority of the people who consider K-Stew an actress also consider her to be outwardly beautiful. I guess no one would try to argue that she's prettier than Charlize Theron, though... So it's kind of hard to tell, really, how much power Snow White actually got through her inner strength, although I guess I can see how the movie tries to prove that.

I guess it could just be that I'm bitter about how bad Hollywood is at letting people be something other than model-pretty. But I shouldn't fault SWatH for that; this movie's just a symptom of that epidemic.

There were good parts about this movie. The writing was not one of them, and lo and behold, neither was K-Stew. However, I did like Charlize Theron as the queen, and Sam Spruell did pretty well with what he was given. I felt bad for Chris Hemsworth: I can't decide if I liked him or not because his role was so...stupid. I mean, his character was supposed to be a bit dumb for a while there, and his human complexity was somewhat stifled by his inclusion in the really awkward love-triangle, and I can't figure out if the reason I want to say he was good in the movie was because I liked him in Thor and The Avengers.

Yeah. This movie was mostly a dud. I wouldn't recommend spending too much money on it.

One fun part that I did honestly enjoy was how much this

reminded me of this

And anything that reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg makes me smile. See earlier unreferenced philosophical assertion.

I would not recommend this movie.

Sorry, K-Stew. If you want my endorsement next time, try not to be so awkward on camera.

On a related note, I would also not recommend this review, unless you want to seethe in futility at the ignorance therein.

--Mary