Went to see The Huntsman: Winter’s War… the sequel that everybody asked for (?!!?) to Snow White and the Huntsman. This, to be exact, is a prequel AND a sequel – enough of a prequel (20 minutes or so) to justify the events of the sequel.
You see, the Evil Queen (Charlize Theron) originally had a sister (Emily Blunt) but Very (Very) Bad Things happened to her so she moved north to be the Ice Queen and raise an army of Huntsmen (who are, apparently, a military order and not just dudes that hunt rabbits). The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) was one of her soldiers but they had a bad break up party so he moved south, vanquished the evil queen with the help of Snow White, and now… sequel time!
Noticeably absent is Kristen Stewart whose Snow White is only seen from behind in one brief scene (she wouldn’t come back for a sequel, apparently). Her absence is missed only in that they invent a new female badass character (played by Jessica Chastaine) to fight with, and be romanced by, Hemsworth. She’s written into his back story but I feel it was just to justify Stewart’s absence.
So is this movie as bad as all that? I guess so. It’s really just incredibly boring. It doesn’t do anything egregiously wrong besides be rather dull and unexciting with doses of really desperate humor. It looks good, the FX are good, and even the Ice Queen’s motivations and persona are actually kind of interesting. Unfortunately, Emily Blunt’s performance is morose and unfun which I guess is justified by her character. However, she has to play against Charlize Theron who is in a completely different movie, camping it up with great pizzazz.
Unfortunately, both she and Blunt are in very little of the movie compared to Hemsworth and Chastaine. And, while I guess they do an ok job, they both try for what I think is an Irish lilt but both of them are terribly inconsistent and somehow Hemsworth drops into his American accent (you’d think he’d drop back to his Australian accent). Chastain goes in and out of it so much I thought she was maybe channeling Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
So, yeah, this was ultimately a movie I saw and have no great raging disdain for. It’s just a dull, boring and somewhat unnecessary time waster. Which promises a sequel. If maybe Theron comes back and brings more life to the party, I might be interested in that (she was the best part of the first film too).
Score: 64