"I'm going to give this wretched world the Queen it deserves...."
*sigh*
Partly due to a love of a well-executed fairytale and partly due to the amazing posters and the costumes, I was really excited about getting a chance to see “Snow White and the Huntsman” on the big screen. This is also part of my ongoing plan to actually, you know, see movies that I want to see in the theater in an actual theater, rather than just ending up trying to track them down on DVD at the library.
So, being in a kind of stressed-out mindspace this evening, where I was not getting any work done anyway, I dragged d_ragondaughter to the theater.
It was indeed visually fascinating-as in, the Evil Queen gets married and has this fantastic dress where there are these decorative shoulder/arm sections that look like cages made out of bird bone , much of the rest of her wardrobe is also amazing, and there were some very cool (or creepy!) visuals involving magic and/or hallucinations... but, on the whole (and with spoilers)....
...it was problematic.
Right at the start, we can tell that this is going to be a Modern Fairy Tale... because the queen, when she pricks her finger (and she is wearing a terrific dress, btw) on the single red rose blooming in the middle of a snow-covered garden, wishes for a daughter who not only has the hair and the skin and the lips, but ALSO who has the spirit of that lone flower, standing bravely in the depths of winter.
Me: Huh. Well, that’s interesting. It is NOT SUBTLE, but it is interesting, that there is this idea of strength as well as beauty. Side note: Chris Helmsworth, stop trying to narrate in that ridiculous faux-brogue.
The other interesting decision is that the queen does not die in childbirth or shortly thereafter. That was really... okay, they did not do much with it, but it was an interesting change in theory, you know? Snow White in this case actually grows up with some maternal influence, rather than never actually knowing her mom and/or feeling guilty for her mother’s death, because the magical wish for a child somehow drained her mother’s life, etc. Unfortunately, the only interaction we see between them is in the context of Snow White bringing her mother an injured bird, immediately after a doctor has given her mother a medical exam to check for plot-illnesses. Her mother tells her that she is beautiful on the inside, in her heart, not just on the outside (side note: skin as white as snow, hair as black as a raven’s wing, and they couldn’t have found a child who was actually a non-freckled dark brunette? Really?).
Of course, that winter her mother dies, the king is highly depressed, and then the following summer a Mysterious Army of Mystery attacks the kingdom. The king and his knights go out to fight this mysterious shadow army, and I start muttering about the total lack of infantry or bowmen, because, seriously. The shadow army itself is also extremely underwhelming... they stand in formation, they kind of attack, then when they are cut, they disintegrate into black shards (which was, again, visually very cool).
Once the army is disintegrated, the king’s forces find a chained wagon, containing a prisoner-namely, the amazingly blonde and beautiful Ravenna, who the king is immediately smitten with.
In fact, he’s so smitten that he marries her the next day, never mind that royal weddings are huge diplomatic affairs and the attendant celebrations would take months to plan not to mention everybody who would have to be invited.
Actually, the main reason I nitpick about that is because the new Queen proceeds to kill the king that very night, in their wedding bed, through a clever combination of drugs, monologuing, and stabbity daggers to the heart. And then she lets in her REAL army (all... twenty of them?), who set many things on fire, and drag the princess off to the tallest tower to be locked up. Snow White almost makes it out, but is knocked off the horse she was on-much to the horror and shock of William, her childhood friend, whose father the Duke is dragging him the heck out of there.
I’m watching this, and I’m thinking, “Really, that fast? Really? Because there are FAR BETTER ways to take power-you get married as quickly as possible, okay, fine, but then you work things out in a subtle fashion. You know, you bring in your brother Jaime Lannister who is your only true friend in the world, you start bringing in your own people, a lot of your new husband’s trusted advisors meet unfortunate fates.... your husband has a tragical hunting accident in the woods... THEN you take power. And you look good doing it, none of this “I am taking power violently and letting it be known I offed the previous royal family” nonsense.
On the other hand-and this is jumping ahead a bit, but I think it’s relevant-the characterization of the Queen has some very interesting elements. Basically, she is a bugnuts crazy serial killer. No, really. And the whole “obsessed with beauty” thing gets explained as well. See, she was a little girl in some random small village up in what is presumably faux-Scandinavia (she and her brother are both super-blond, and the village is full of blond people and also snow), which was being raided/conquered/etc., and her mother used magic (again involving three drops of blood) to create a spell under which Ravenna’s beauty would literally be her power-when she uses her magic, she ages/loses beauty, and would also be her protection-when her beauty is operating at full force, I think, she has influence over men (not all men, and possibly not without having to work at it a bit, but that’s basically what she did to Snow White’s father, ergo, the super-fast wedding).
Because every spell has a way to undo it, the concept that Ravenna has been spelled to be “the fairest” means that “fairest blood” can either kill her... or, if she takes and devours Snow White’s heart, then she will become truly immortal and will never have to replenish her power through feeding off of the life force of beautiful women again.
That is a really interesting explanation for the Evil Queen being obsessed with being the fairest, you know? She has to keep checking on her status as the fairest, because anybody else who is “the fairest blood” will be able to kill her. Her magical powers protect her and get her what she wants... but the cost is that she needs a constant source of beautiful women to drain (thus aging them). It also explains the “bring me her heart” aspect of the story.
There is also-and this is implied more than it is stated-the fact that Ravenna’s mother cast the spell specifically as a desperate move to save her pre-teen daughter from the invaders, possibly because she knew something about what happens to young girls in time of war in general, and about the invading king in particular. Because he takes Ravenna back to the palace, gets rid of his then-queen for being “too old” and takes Ravenna as his new queen. When she is probably twelve, tops. Now, this is better than being raped and murdered in the burning remains of her village, but from the way Ravenna describes it (“A king ruined me once....”), it was obviously (and unsurprisingly) very traumatic.
Since then, Ravenna has been completely, psychotically obsessed with a) getting her revenge on Every King Ever and b) maintaining her beauty. She has been working her way across the land, from kingdom to kingdom, ensnaring the kings, hating them for being so obsessed with the beauty she is obsessively maintaining, killing them, ruining their kingdoms, stealing the lives of the women who are up to her standards (there is a group of women who have scarred their faces on purpose so that the Queen leaves them alone), and then moving on to her next target. Over and over and over again. She also says several things about women getting their hearts broken by handsome young men, and about men casting aside women once they get old, that imply the first has happened to her, and the second probably would have once that first king tired of her except that she killed him first. Her brother (who clearly is the result of the screenwriters having read “Game of Thrones” once too often) is her only true friend-she’s kept him young and healthy just as she’s kept herself that way; they may not actually be incestuously involved with each other, but the vibe is definitely there.
OTOH, the brother is one of those characters who is just creepy and rapey overall.
The attempt to make the Queen have an understandable psychosis aside (and the fact that when the mirror talks to her, nobody else can see it), there was much to eyeroll about.
Also, Kristen Stewart needs to invest in at least one other facial expression, or directors need to stop telling her to play roles as if she is always Bella Swan.
Snow White is up in her tiny dungeon room for YEARS, with everybody thinking she is dead, and she still gets decent (actually fancy) clothing, and a pair of entirely ahistorical (albeit cool) leggings under her skirt and chemise, so that later on she can be running around in the woods in something more practical than a dress. Also, in spite of her years of confinement, she is able to make an amazing and daring escape (aided by a) magical birds, b) a probably-magical horse, and c) the fact that the queen’s brother can’t resist a chance to come into her cell and be creepy and rapey now that he knows his sister is about to finally rip out the princess’ heart). Finally.... okay, she has these two little twig dolls, which I think we are supposed to see as possibly representing her parents, and having been her sole companions these many years, but which really just look like an attempt to work voodoo on the Evil Queen and her brother. Which I would have been okay with, really. And.... Snow White also recites the Lord’s Prayer, because clearly this is a Christian faux-medieval fictional universe with sparkly fairies and magic in it. Right.
No, seriously-sparkly fairies and magic. Because in ADDITION to the death-magic the Queen is using (she has this creepy set of metal claw things for her thumb and forefinger, with which she can pluck the hearts out of colorful songbirds as a snack...), there is this whole “the royal family is the life of the land, and can yell at bridge trolls, and be recognized by mystical white stags who wandered in from “Princess Mononoke” and bring healing to a land devastated by the death of the previous ruler... provided they have a proper coronation ceremony with, like, bishops and Gothic cathedrals and stuff.”
Of course, the sparkly fairy magical realm has super-lousy security, which is not so great when the Evil Queen’s evil brother and his assorted minions are chasing you.
And then there is the Huntsman. Chris Helmsworth, playing a scruffy type who, for no readily understandable reason, knows his way around the Dark Forest (which is only the first of the many, many landscapes our intrepid heroine must wander through), and is also a conveniently tragic widower who has been trying to drown his sorrows in basically anything with alcohol. He promises to bring the escaped prisoner back in exchange for the Queen bringing his deceased wife back... and promptly switches sides when the evil brother tells him that he’s a moron and resurrecting the dead is impossible (to be fair, the evil brother had a set of minions with him, and the Huntsman had Snow White by the arm, so if you’re going to tell somebody they are an idiot who you have tricked, those are reasonable odds).
Later, the evil brother taunts the Huntsman with the very strong implication that either he was the one who raped and killed the Huntsman’s wife, or that he stood by gleefully while the Queen drained her... it is probably supposed to be the former, frankly.
Me: Okay, just once, can we please have a scene where the bad guy reveals that he is the one who is responsible for the horrible, incapacitatingly tragic death of the hero’s poor dead wife... and have the hero raise an eyebrow and say, “What are you talking about, she died of pneumonia”? Because there was no lead-in to that, and no real reason to HAVE the brother suddenly spouting off about the tragically dead wife except to throw the hero off his game, there.
The Huntsman escorts Snow White through the various plot points... meanwhile, her childhood friend William has learned she is still alive (the old guy who the Queen left alive to stumble back to the rebel camp with his dead son’s body sees her escape; nice touch) and has pretended to join the Evil Brother’s mercenaries so that he can track her down and help her and also shoot the actual mercenaries. Since Snow White does not know who he IS while he is helping chase them, this seems like a fairly dimwitted plan.
(between him, the Huntsman, and the bridge troll, we basically have Hawkeye, Thor, and the Hulk... not to mention a Black Widow)
The Queen disguises herself-not as an old peddlar woman-but as William-which, again, if you are trying to trick the heroine, a creepy, slightly-off version of her childhood crush is a better strategy than a random old peasant woman knocking on the door. The apple makes Snow White act like she is either being poisoned by it or choking on it... and considering that the Huntsman and William both get there before she’s actually “dead,” I kept wanting to yell, “Pound on her back! Help her cough that thing back up!”
William kisses her....aaaand nothing happens. The dwarves (yes, there are dwarves; yes they are supposedly the last remnants of their people, since the death of the king killed the spirit of the land or something.... yes, there is that one dwarf who is the redshirt character, because clearly there has to be a sympathetic character death, preferably saving the heroine) help carry her to the rebel headquarters....and do NOT in fact stumble and fall and dislodge the apple piece from her throat.
And then.... she is laid out in state in a white dress (and no shoes, because..... I have no idea), and the Huntsman comes in, gives a very emotional speech about his tragically dead wife and how Snow White reminds him of her... and then HE kisses her and weeps manly tears... and then, after he’s left, she wakes up.
With the sunset, mind you, so the obvious implication is that Snow White has become a Sparklepire.
(and the fact that I know not just one but two creepy takes on the original story where she IS an evil vampire does not help)
Unfortunately, because she has not yet fed properly, her inspiring speech is completely incoherent. Fortunately, due to her magical Mary Sue powers of being a royal who holds the life of the kingdom or whatever, it inspires everybody anyway. And they go off to storm the castle so that Snow White can kill the Evil Queen in person (because the Evil Queen monologued about it post-apple, and Snow White heard it and now knows she’s the only one who can kill the Queen).
Do they have an actual military strategy? Or, finally, infantry and bowmen? Well, the bad guys do. Did anybody think it might work better to have Snow White and the Huntsmen and possibly Will and/or some dwarves infiltrate the place quietly and carry out a nice assassination on their own, without having everybody else charging in through trebuchet fire and boiling pitch and showers of arrows? Um. No.
The Evil Queen’s last defense is a fairly impressive (visually and tactically) set of monsters made of, essentially, razor-sharp shards of black glass. And, of course, the One And Only Defensive Move that the Huntsman taught Snow White (seriously; I thought this movie would involve MORE TRAINING MONTAGES!... I cannot believe I said that) proves to be the way she kills the Evil Queen.
And then... Snow White has this very weird moment of looking at her reflection in the magic mirror, where you kind of expect the mirror to be, “Hey, Snow White! Looking good! Did I mention I am out of a job?” (odds that the creepy fanfic already exists?) or else that she will end up smashing it. But... cut scene to the coronation, at which Snow White carries a tree branch which she may or may not have caused to flower (because of course) and gives a cleaned-up Chris Helmsworth a look which clearly says, “Hey, did I mention that even though I have to marry my childhood crush the Duke’s son, because of lineage and dynasties and marriage alliances, I still totally have room for you here at court? Because I would just like to point out that it DID take both of you kissing me for the spell to break. That, or the apple had to, you know, digest. Or something. You doing anything after the coronation?”
There is a very good discussion of the film (possibly less rambly than this?) over at Tor.com, where Emily Asher-Perrin poses the perfectly valid question, So, did you understand “Snow White and the Huntsman”
Personally, my conclusion is, great visuals, interesting choices with the Evil Queen, wow there are some things that did NOT work, and plot holes you could drive tanks through, doubtless going to be inspiring something at some point.
Partly due to a love of a well-executed fairytale and partly due to the amazing posters and the costumes, I was really excited about getting a chance to see “Snow White and the Huntsman” on the big screen. This is also part of my ongoing plan to actually, you know, see movies that I want to see in the theater in an actual theater, rather than just ending up trying to track them down on DVD at the library.
So, being in a kind of stressed-out mindspace this evening, where I was not getting any work done anyway, I dragged d_ragondaughter to the theater.
It was indeed visually fascinating-as in, the Evil Queen gets married and has this fantastic dress where there are these decorative shoulder/arm sections that look like cages made out of bird bone , much of the rest of her wardrobe is also amazing, and there were some very cool (or creepy!) visuals involving magic and/or hallucinations... but, on the whole (and with spoilers)....
...it was problematic.
Right at the start, we can tell that this is going to be a Modern Fairy Tale... because the queen, when she pricks her finger (and she is wearing a terrific dress, btw) on the single red rose blooming in the middle of a snow-covered garden, wishes for a daughter who not only has the hair and the skin and the lips, but ALSO who has the spirit of that lone flower, standing bravely in the depths of winter.
Me: Huh. Well, that’s interesting. It is NOT SUBTLE, but it is interesting, that there is this idea of strength as well as beauty. Side note: Chris Helmsworth, stop trying to narrate in that ridiculous faux-brogue.
The other interesting decision is that the queen does not die in childbirth or shortly thereafter. That was really... okay, they did not do much with it, but it was an interesting change in theory, you know? Snow White in this case actually grows up with some maternal influence, rather than never actually knowing her mom and/or feeling guilty for her mother’s death, because the magical wish for a child somehow drained her mother’s life, etc. Unfortunately, the only interaction we see between them is in the context of Snow White bringing her mother an injured bird, immediately after a doctor has given her mother a medical exam to check for plot-illnesses. Her mother tells her that she is beautiful on the inside, in her heart, not just on the outside (side note: skin as white as snow, hair as black as a raven’s wing, and they couldn’t have found a child who was actually a non-freckled dark brunette? Really?).
Of course, that winter her mother dies, the king is highly depressed, and then the following summer a Mysterious Army of Mystery attacks the kingdom. The king and his knights go out to fight this mysterious shadow army, and I start muttering about the total lack of infantry or bowmen, because, seriously. The shadow army itself is also extremely underwhelming... they stand in formation, they kind of attack, then when they are cut, they disintegrate into black shards (which was, again, visually very cool).
Once the army is disintegrated, the king’s forces find a chained wagon, containing a prisoner-namely, the amazingly blonde and beautiful Ravenna, who the king is immediately smitten with.
In fact, he’s so smitten that he marries her the next day, never mind that royal weddings are huge diplomatic affairs and the attendant celebrations would take months to plan not to mention everybody who would have to be invited.
Actually, the main reason I nitpick about that is because the new Queen proceeds to kill the king that very night, in their wedding bed, through a clever combination of drugs, monologuing, and stabbity daggers to the heart. And then she lets in her REAL army (all... twenty of them?), who set many things on fire, and drag the princess off to the tallest tower to be locked up. Snow White almost makes it out, but is knocked off the horse she was on-much to the horror and shock of William, her childhood friend, whose father the Duke is dragging him the heck out of there.
I’m watching this, and I’m thinking, “Really, that fast? Really? Because there are FAR BETTER ways to take power-you get married as quickly as possible, okay, fine, but then you work things out in a subtle fashion. You know, you bring in your brother Jaime Lannister who is your only true friend in the world, you start bringing in your own people, a lot of your new husband’s trusted advisors meet unfortunate fates.... your husband has a tragical hunting accident in the woods... THEN you take power. And you look good doing it, none of this “I am taking power violently and letting it be known I offed the previous royal family” nonsense.
On the other hand-and this is jumping ahead a bit, but I think it’s relevant-the characterization of the Queen has some very interesting elements. Basically, she is a bugnuts crazy serial killer. No, really. And the whole “obsessed with beauty” thing gets explained as well. See, she was a little girl in some random small village up in what is presumably faux-Scandinavia (she and her brother are both super-blond, and the village is full of blond people and also snow), which was being raided/conquered/etc., and her mother used magic (again involving three drops of blood) to create a spell under which Ravenna’s beauty would literally be her power-when she uses her magic, she ages/loses beauty, and would also be her protection-when her beauty is operating at full force, I think, she has influence over men (not all men, and possibly not without having to work at it a bit, but that’s basically what she did to Snow White’s father, ergo, the super-fast wedding).
Because every spell has a way to undo it, the concept that Ravenna has been spelled to be “the fairest” means that “fairest blood” can either kill her... or, if she takes and devours Snow White’s heart, then she will become truly immortal and will never have to replenish her power through feeding off of the life force of beautiful women again.
That is a really interesting explanation for the Evil Queen being obsessed with being the fairest, you know? She has to keep checking on her status as the fairest, because anybody else who is “the fairest blood” will be able to kill her. Her magical powers protect her and get her what she wants... but the cost is that she needs a constant source of beautiful women to drain (thus aging them). It also explains the “bring me her heart” aspect of the story.
There is also-and this is implied more than it is stated-the fact that Ravenna’s mother cast the spell specifically as a desperate move to save her pre-teen daughter from the invaders, possibly because she knew something about what happens to young girls in time of war in general, and about the invading king in particular. Because he takes Ravenna back to the palace, gets rid of his then-queen for being “too old” and takes Ravenna as his new queen. When she is probably twelve, tops. Now, this is better than being raped and murdered in the burning remains of her village, but from the way Ravenna describes it (“A king ruined me once....”), it was obviously (and unsurprisingly) very traumatic.
Since then, Ravenna has been completely, psychotically obsessed with a) getting her revenge on Every King Ever and b) maintaining her beauty. She has been working her way across the land, from kingdom to kingdom, ensnaring the kings, hating them for being so obsessed with the beauty she is obsessively maintaining, killing them, ruining their kingdoms, stealing the lives of the women who are up to her standards (there is a group of women who have scarred their faces on purpose so that the Queen leaves them alone), and then moving on to her next target. Over and over and over again. She also says several things about women getting their hearts broken by handsome young men, and about men casting aside women once they get old, that imply the first has happened to her, and the second probably would have once that first king tired of her except that she killed him first. Her brother (who clearly is the result of the screenwriters having read “Game of Thrones” once too often) is her only true friend-she’s kept him young and healthy just as she’s kept herself that way; they may not actually be incestuously involved with each other, but the vibe is definitely there.
OTOH, the brother is one of those characters who is just creepy and rapey overall.
The attempt to make the Queen have an understandable psychosis aside (and the fact that when the mirror talks to her, nobody else can see it), there was much to eyeroll about.
Also, Kristen Stewart needs to invest in at least one other facial expression, or directors need to stop telling her to play roles as if she is always Bella Swan.
Snow White is up in her tiny dungeon room for YEARS, with everybody thinking she is dead, and she still gets decent (actually fancy) clothing, and a pair of entirely ahistorical (albeit cool) leggings under her skirt and chemise, so that later on she can be running around in the woods in something more practical than a dress. Also, in spite of her years of confinement, she is able to make an amazing and daring escape (aided by a) magical birds, b) a probably-magical horse, and c) the fact that the queen’s brother can’t resist a chance to come into her cell and be creepy and rapey now that he knows his sister is about to finally rip out the princess’ heart). Finally.... okay, she has these two little twig dolls, which I think we are supposed to see as possibly representing her parents, and having been her sole companions these many years, but which really just look like an attempt to work voodoo on the Evil Queen and her brother. Which I would have been okay with, really. And.... Snow White also recites the Lord’s Prayer, because clearly this is a Christian faux-medieval fictional universe with sparkly fairies and magic in it. Right.
No, seriously-sparkly fairies and magic. Because in ADDITION to the death-magic the Queen is using (she has this creepy set of metal claw things for her thumb and forefinger, with which she can pluck the hearts out of colorful songbirds as a snack...), there is this whole “the royal family is the life of the land, and can yell at bridge trolls, and be recognized by mystical white stags who wandered in from “Princess Mononoke” and bring healing to a land devastated by the death of the previous ruler... provided they have a proper coronation ceremony with, like, bishops and Gothic cathedrals and stuff.”
Of course, the sparkly fairy magical realm has super-lousy security, which is not so great when the Evil Queen’s evil brother and his assorted minions are chasing you.
And then there is the Huntsman. Chris Helmsworth, playing a scruffy type who, for no readily understandable reason, knows his way around the Dark Forest (which is only the first of the many, many landscapes our intrepid heroine must wander through), and is also a conveniently tragic widower who has been trying to drown his sorrows in basically anything with alcohol. He promises to bring the escaped prisoner back in exchange for the Queen bringing his deceased wife back... and promptly switches sides when the evil brother tells him that he’s a moron and resurrecting the dead is impossible (to be fair, the evil brother had a set of minions with him, and the Huntsman had Snow White by the arm, so if you’re going to tell somebody they are an idiot who you have tricked, those are reasonable odds).
Later, the evil brother taunts the Huntsman with the very strong implication that either he was the one who raped and killed the Huntsman’s wife, or that he stood by gleefully while the Queen drained her... it is probably supposed to be the former, frankly.
Me: Okay, just once, can we please have a scene where the bad guy reveals that he is the one who is responsible for the horrible, incapacitatingly tragic death of the hero’s poor dead wife... and have the hero raise an eyebrow and say, “What are you talking about, she died of pneumonia”? Because there was no lead-in to that, and no real reason to HAVE the brother suddenly spouting off about the tragically dead wife except to throw the hero off his game, there.
The Huntsman escorts Snow White through the various plot points... meanwhile, her childhood friend William has learned she is still alive (the old guy who the Queen left alive to stumble back to the rebel camp with his dead son’s body sees her escape; nice touch) and has pretended to join the Evil Brother’s mercenaries so that he can track her down and help her and also shoot the actual mercenaries. Since Snow White does not know who he IS while he is helping chase them, this seems like a fairly dimwitted plan.
(between him, the Huntsman, and the bridge troll, we basically have Hawkeye, Thor, and the Hulk... not to mention a Black Widow)
The Queen disguises herself-not as an old peddlar woman-but as William-which, again, if you are trying to trick the heroine, a creepy, slightly-off version of her childhood crush is a better strategy than a random old peasant woman knocking on the door. The apple makes Snow White act like she is either being poisoned by it or choking on it... and considering that the Huntsman and William both get there before she’s actually “dead,” I kept wanting to yell, “Pound on her back! Help her cough that thing back up!”
William kisses her....aaaand nothing happens. The dwarves (yes, there are dwarves; yes they are supposedly the last remnants of their people, since the death of the king killed the spirit of the land or something.... yes, there is that one dwarf who is the redshirt character, because clearly there has to be a sympathetic character death, preferably saving the heroine) help carry her to the rebel headquarters....and do NOT in fact stumble and fall and dislodge the apple piece from her throat.
And then.... she is laid out in state in a white dress (and no shoes, because..... I have no idea), and the Huntsman comes in, gives a very emotional speech about his tragically dead wife and how Snow White reminds him of her... and then HE kisses her and weeps manly tears... and then, after he’s left, she wakes up.
With the sunset, mind you, so the obvious implication is that Snow White has become a Sparklepire.
(and the fact that I know not just one but two creepy takes on the original story where she IS an evil vampire does not help)
Unfortunately, because she has not yet fed properly, her inspiring speech is completely incoherent. Fortunately, due to her magical Mary Sue powers of being a royal who holds the life of the kingdom or whatever, it inspires everybody anyway. And they go off to storm the castle so that Snow White can kill the Evil Queen in person (because the Evil Queen monologued about it post-apple, and Snow White heard it and now knows she’s the only one who can kill the Queen).
Do they have an actual military strategy? Or, finally, infantry and bowmen? Well, the bad guys do. Did anybody think it might work better to have Snow White and the Huntsmen and possibly Will and/or some dwarves infiltrate the place quietly and carry out a nice assassination on their own, without having everybody else charging in through trebuchet fire and boiling pitch and showers of arrows? Um. No.
The Evil Queen’s last defense is a fairly impressive (visually and tactically) set of monsters made of, essentially, razor-sharp shards of black glass. And, of course, the One And Only Defensive Move that the Huntsman taught Snow White (seriously; I thought this movie would involve MORE TRAINING MONTAGES!... I cannot believe I said that) proves to be the way she kills the Evil Queen.
And then... Snow White has this very weird moment of looking at her reflection in the magic mirror, where you kind of expect the mirror to be, “Hey, Snow White! Looking good! Did I mention I am out of a job?” (odds that the creepy fanfic already exists?) or else that she will end up smashing it. But... cut scene to the coronation, at which Snow White carries a tree branch which she may or may not have caused to flower (because of course) and gives a cleaned-up Chris Helmsworth a look which clearly says, “Hey, did I mention that even though I have to marry my childhood crush the Duke’s son, because of lineage and dynasties and marriage alliances, I still totally have room for you here at court? Because I would just like to point out that it DID take both of you kissing me for the spell to break. That, or the apple had to, you know, digest. Or something. You doing anything after the coronation?”
There is a very good discussion of the film (possibly less rambly than this?) over at Tor.com, where Emily Asher-Perrin poses the perfectly valid question, So, did you understand “Snow White and the Huntsman”
Personally, my conclusion is, great visuals, interesting choices with the Evil Queen, wow there are some things that did NOT work, and plot holes you could drive tanks through, doubtless going to be inspiring something at some point.