FILM REVIEW: SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Raveenna (Charlize Theron) in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Poisonous words for the princess

By Don Simpson

After a brief introduction to the wish that made Snow White the fairest baby of them all, we meet the prepubescent Snow (Raffey Cassidy). It is not long before her mother (Liberty Ross) the queen dies, thus leaving Snow with her father (Noah Huntley) the king. Other than the sadness of her mother’s early death, Snow’s childhood is idyllic and so is her surrounding world. The oh-so-peaceful and pure Snow loves nature just as much as nature loves her.

When an evil army forces Snow’s father to enter his kingdom into battle, a beautiful woman — Ravenna (Charlize Theron) — is discovered in the rubble of the aftermath. The king is instantly smitten and claims Ravenna as his wife. Ravenna is almost immediately crowned queen and becomes Snow’s stepmother — make that her evil stepmother. In a moment of near-Shakespearean tragedy, Ravenna murders Snow’s father, thus seizing tyrannical control over his kingdom. Ravenna’s army kills or exiles all of the king’s supporters and Snow is imprisoned indefinitely.

Basically, Ravenna is an egomaniacal bitch who spends half of her days chatting with the mirror man (Christopher Obi), confirming time and time again that she is the fairest of them all. Until one day she is not. Oh no! Snow (Kristen Stewart) has reached puberty, which finally qualifies her to enter into the fairer than thou competition going on inside Ravenna’s brain. The psychotically image-focused Ravenna must claim Snow’s heart in order to become the the fairest of them all once again.

Snow promptly escapes, running away into the dark forest; Ravenna hires Thor — I mean, The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) — to track her down. It is not long before Snow has a small (some more literally than others) entourage of men who are willing to risk their lives to protect her. Oh, and at least two of the men are totally smitten with her.

Probably as a result of Stewart’s inherent sulkiness, a prophesy is provided to us as an excuse for the unflinching dedication of Snow’s followers. Because other than her pale skin, Stewart is unable to convey any of the alluring qualities that are integral to the character of Snow — you know, like peacefulness, tranquility, and innocence. Stewart’s Snow is like a grumpy goth chick with a perpetual frown. In other words, Snow is nearly identical to every other character Stewart has attempted to portray.

For the first two acts, Snow repeatedly makes it clear that she is a pacifist who will never hurt another living creature; but when she rises from the dead in the third act, she becomes all bad ass. Suddenly, Snow decides to lead an army of men into an against-all-odds battle with Ravenna’s army. Yeah, I get it. If the legend is correct, Snow is the savior, the chosen one, whatever you want to call her; it is her calling to save the world from evil by way of a bloody crusade with no exit strategy. You know, like Joan of Arc…or George W. Bush.

Rupert Sanders’ debut feature is a good idea that has gone horribly wrong. I will give Sanders credit for some brilliant visual ideas, but the writing pales (pun intended) in comparison. Maybe if writers Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini relied less upon Christian theology, the story might have been a little less heavy-handed and hokey? Early on, it seemed as though Snow White and the Huntsman might be a clever post-feminist diatribe about body image, pacifism and environmentalism. Boy, was I way off the mark!

Theron gives the only decent performance in the entire film, though there are even a few scenes that she probably could have dialed back a few notches. Theron has made a career of being a chameleon. She can become old or ugly just as effortlessly as she can become impeccably beautiful — and Snow White and the Huntsman relies quite heavily upon that ability. Ravenna’s appearance is in a constant state of flux and Theron is convincing no matter what quantity of make up or CGI is applied to her face. It is a damn shame that the other actors in Snow White and the Huntsman are incapable of performing with comparable range.

FILM REVIEW: THE AVENGERS

A scene from The Avengers.

Comics con

By Don Simpson

The Avengers may not be a great film, but it is probably the best superhero film ever made -- which is not necessarily saying a lot.

Sure, there are a few exceptions, but even the best superhero films (X-Men, X2, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Night) have had their fatal flaws. First and foremost, no superhero film to date has been able to maintain a strong and coherent narrative for the duration of the film. The significance of the story always plays second-fiddle to special effects, action sequences and costumes. That is just the nature of the beast. As film history informs us, superhero films are supposed to be straightforward stories of good versus evil. Sure, sometimes the definitions of good and bad are a little blurred, and good does not always prevail (at least not in the short term), but there is always a superhero (or team of superheroes) and a villain (or a group of villains), and battle they must. The villains are never all that complex; in most cases they just want to control the world or destroy it, other times they are just good old fashioned nut jobs.

The Avengers plot is not much better. If anything, the plots of X-Men and X2 are stronger. Oh, no! Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), wants to bring the world to its knees with an alien army! Who can save the world? The Avengers! So, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) rallies his team of misfits together...and the rest is history. Luckily for writer-director Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse), several of The Avengers origins stories have already been theatrically released so no backstory is necessary for the superheroes. Even the two Avengers who were deemed not worthy of origins stories -- Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) -- only get a couple lines of expository dialogue to explain their pasts.

So with a half-assed plot, and no character development, Whedon, one of the true masters of witty, snarky, self-referential dialogue, plays to his strengths and saturates the script with smart ass dialogue. In turn, there is no point in The Avengers where the film takes itself seriously -- which is not such a bad thing. Working with superheroes like Thor, who protects the world with his giant hammer (to quote Captain Hammer from Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: “the hammer is my penis”), or Captain America (Chris Evans), who protects the world with a shield (okay, I admit it, I’m lacking a sexual metaphor for this guy), what is to be taken seriously? Then, there is Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) who is as cocksure as superheroes come and the not-so-jolly green giant with severe anger management issues, The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Essentially, Whedon uses The Avengers as a playground to allow the Avengers free reign to mock each other, and he does this in such a way to be humorous but not piss off loyal fans of the source material.

Speaking of fans, if you are a fan of Whedon’s television work, the Avengers are culled directly from the Whedonverse. Whedon has made a career of developing characters who must come to terms with their superhuman powers. Then they are matched up against other superhuman characters. Then Whedon lets them fight (physically or verbally) out their differences until they begrudgingly join forces in an apocalyptic battle against a seemingly undefeatable enemy. In most cases, there is a higher power who is revealed to be playing puppet master, controlling the fate of the world (usually unbeknown to the protagonists).

On a side note, there is a much stronger Whedon screenplay currently in multiplexes that is far more worthy of your attention: Cabin in the Woods. Unlike The Avengers’ watered-down plot (which we can probably chalk up to Disney keeping Whedon on a short leash), the narrative complexities of Cabin in the Woods’ plot reaches nearly inexplicable levels. Cabin in the Woods proves that genre filmmaking can push the intellectual limits of the audience, whereas The Avengers is just another Hollywood joyride.