The Huntsman: Winter's War

            Back in 2012, I reviewed the summer blockbuster that was “Snow White & the Huntsman.” The film was a retelling of the story of Snow White, giving it a much darker tone and making it somewhat of an action fantasy epic, but in a way that actually worked. You might also remember that I gave the film very high praise, even stated that it almost made my favorite films of the year, and I still stand by that. I love some of the creative liberties they took with the film, the production value was fantastic, and it was one of the better adaptations of fairy tales that I’ve seen in the past few years. I mean, it was definitely a big step up from the other Snow White film, “Mirror Mirror.”

            When Universal announced that they would do a sequel to “Snow White & the Huntsman,” it seemed like things were going in good order…but then things hit a big snag. During the release of the film, there was a massive scandal where it revealed that Kristen Stewart was having an affair with the director of the film, Rupert Sanders. This resulted in both of their current relationship statuses being broken apart, AND the two were fired from the sequel. So the status of the film was left in limbo, until it was announced that the follow-up film would be a spin-off of the Huntsman, Eric, played by Chris Hemmsworth.

            “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” tells us the backstory of Eric, who was one of many children taken from his family by the evil ice queen, Freya. Years later, Eric and the other children are trained to be Huntsmen, warriors of Freya’s kingdom to do her bidding, with him and Sara, his girlfriend, being the two best. Freya however separates them for having a forbidden love, and years later the two reunite to fight against Freya, before she gets the Magic Mirror that belonged to Ravenna, the evil queen from the first movie.

            Okay, while the premise does sound interesting, how the rest of the story unfolds is pretty damn flimsy. What I mean is that the film is trying so hard to be both a prequel AND a sequel, but it fails to find a proper balance. It’s made even more troublesome when the film tries informing you about events that happened in the last film, yet you still feel like you’re missing something.

            I will give credit to the cast that plays our heroes. Chris Hemmsworth and Jessica Chastain do try their best, they have good chemistry, and they can do their action scenes fairly well. The problem is that the script barely gives them enough material to work with that it’s hard to buy their relationship. Hell, some of their dialogue tends to feel sappy, so much to where it almost reaches Anikan and Padme levels of sappy. Also, Nick Frost returns as one of the dwarves, but he’s the only one of them that actually reprises his role. The other three dwarves in this film are new characters, two of which are female dwarves to act as love interests, and again, do a good job as these characters, but the script gives them barely anything to work with.

            Charlize Theron returns as Ravenna, and I’ll give credit to her trying to make this work…but why did she even need to come back? The minute she pops up on screen, she takes over the role of the villain, plotting against Snow White, who doesn’t have much to do with this story. They go into this backstory on how she obtained this mirror, and how after using it, made it into a horcrux or something like that…how? When? But let me just say the worst character and by far the worst performance came from Emily Blunt as the Ice Queen, Freya. Freya is this loveless bitch, who figures if she can’t have love then nobody will, all because her baby was burned alive, and she was led to believe it was the man she loved…oh, spoiler alert, like anyone would care. Over the years, I’ve grown fond of Emily Blunt as an actress, especially with her performances in “Sicario” and “Edge of Tomorrow,” but this is by far her worst performance. Why? Because you can obviously tell that she did not give one ounce of a shit about this film and didn’t even bother trying. That is how uninteresting this was.

            Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, the director of this film and the visual effects artist of the first film, does show some form of promise, being this is his directorial debut. The action scenes and production value do look nice, but that’s not really much to praise about, is it? Maybe if it had a better script to work under, this probably could have turned out to be something decent. Who knows?

            Overall, “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” was just unnecessary. It’s not the worst film I’ve seen this year, but it’s not good either. Do yourself a favor and just watch “Snow White & the Huntsman” instead, you’ll have a much better time watching that.

Rating: 3/10