"Snow White" - Movie Review

Going into the theater, expectations were very low. Many people on social media created edits of Rachel Zegler’s controversial interviews at the beginning of production in 2023 and others about what a terrible actress Gal Gadot is.

With that in mind, the film was not as bad as anticipated, but definitely not up to Disney standards.

The film revolves around a princess, Snow White, whose parents tragically passed away when she was young, leaving her with only an evil stepmother. Snow grows up wanting to become the woman her father always wanted her to be. She, along with newfound friends, fights to take back her kingdom and save her people.

Contrary to Rachel’s original statements, Snow is ultimately saved by a man, as she was in the 1937 version. However, the expository plot that was added to the film did work to its benefit.

Without spoilers, the new plot points motivate Snow’s actions as well as establish a prior relationship between Snow and her true love.

Speaking of true love, Andrew Burnap played Jonathan, the love interest. Andrew’s performance was quite convincing, but Rachel didn’t seem to reciprocate. His charm alone drew the audience in.

Along with the character of Jonathan were his crew; the dynamic was very similar to Robin Hood and his merry men. The biggest question with these characters was that Disney’s diversity efforts were apparent.

The crew didn’t play a large role in the film overall, but they essentially added two token diversity characters to appease certain groups. People in the town were of diverse backgrounds as well, but again, they weren’t the big roles. It was simply an unnatural selection.

Finally, Rachel Zegler, besides her unfortunate bob, did an okay job. The only thing that really stood out was the fact that her underbite look was ever present. However, her voice did sound beautiful.

Everything mentioned thus far has been pretty good, but let’s get into the ugly.

Notice that Gal Gadot was not discussed with the other cast members. When it came to Gal Gadot, the acting talents were not there. Her ability to scare a room with her power was laughable at best. She just wasn’t able to pull off the villain archetype.

One of the things that made Gal’s performance poor was her villainous songs. The songs in this film were hit or miss.

In order of best to worst, the order would be: “Waiting On A Wish,” “Good Things Grow,” “Heigh-Ho,” “Snow White Returns,” “The Silly Song,” “Whistle While You Work,” “A Hand Meets A Hand,” “Princess Problems” and “All Is Fair”.

The adapted songs from the original were all modified in some way, whether that be lyrics or scenes within the film. As a fan of the original version, it was hard to get excited about the new soundtrack, considering most of it consists of brand new tunes. Luckily, the whimsy is still alive.

As for the literal production, the blunders were immense. In a few scenes, the audio was clearly not edited properly, as it would be silent between audio clips or it sounded as though it was recorded underwater.

Additionally, in the last scene, there are two young extras who are meant to be on either side of an adult. One of the extras stood in the wrong spot and the other extra visibly pointed to where the original extra’s mark was.

There’s something about that making it into the final product that decreases the quality, especially as it’s a Walt Disney production.

Overall, the film was sub-par. While not as bad as predicted, it was not Disney-standard, which was upsetting. Check it out and have a laugh!

Rating: 1/5

Isabel Sweet is a third-year majoring in film production. To contact her, email ips5219@psu.edu.