I, too, have seen Snow White and the Huntsman.
I did not hate it--I definitely didn't hate it to the extent that some people are hating it.
At the same time, I did not love it enough to be happy seeing it a second or third time. Which is annoying, because I really liked a couple of characters and found others compelling, and I'd like to see them again.
I feel like this movie suffers from two big problems. Neither of these are the acting. The performances ran a gamut from trying (our dear William) through to genuinely good (the Huntsman and the Queen, with Snow White running close behind mostly due to a dearth of lines).
No, problem number one is the unevenness of the script. We whiplash back and forth from actually rather subtle* to hamfisted**.
*: what we're told of the Queen's history, the dressing prep the Queen was going through before being married, the progression of the Huntsman's attitude towards Snow White, the apple blossoms, as examples
**: oh my god the rallying speech. That's not Ms Stewart's delivery at all, she's doing her best, that's really bad writing. Really, really bad. So is most of the exposition in Sanctuary; there are better ways to give background on the dwarves, and to sketch Snow's connection to her land.
I could have handled a hamfisted script. It's not my favourite approach to movie-watching, but hell, I can watch Chronicles of Riddick without wincing.
I can handle a subtle script; again, not my favourite approach to movie-watching, but that's mostly because they don't tend to really interesting action scenes. (The Bourne Identity is an exception. The American is not.)
It's the damned whiplash that gives me problems with this script. I can't watch the sequence of Ravenna being dressed for her wedding without later wondering who on earth is getting her into the fantasy-villain costumes (Who's making those things?). I can't see the apple tree in fruit and flower at the same time without later wondering why almost all the magic we see is directly associated with Ravenna, and only Ravenna. Why is the Church only present for coronations? Why is there only one prayer in the whole of the movie?
It's hard to reconcile the obvious background familiarity of snarking at and using the Huntsman as a pinata while you've got him strung up by his ankles and then infodumping all the dwarvish history at the viewer. One or the other, guys, you make me really frustrated like this. I can't turn my brain off and just wait for the booms, because I'm actually interested in these characters. ARGH.
Similarly, we progress through locations more as [Scene] [tiny transition] [Scene!] [Scene] [tiny transition] than organically, with many rather lovely special effects being used in a way that doesn't further the plot at all*.
*: Two examples:
What subtle background hinting we get of the Queen's history doesn't actually excuse the milk bath sequence. Which could have been handled better, in both senses of the word: we could have gotten the background hinting elsewhere, and if she's bathing in milk as a beauty regime why is that the only time we see her doing anything non-magical in relation to her looks?
The White Hart sequence could have been cut entirely and the movie would have been better for it, especially given five minutes' worth of other padding into other scenes wherein we get the sense that places and people are better for Snow White being around them, and the seer of the dwarves giving timely warning a couple of times.
Problem number two is that this movie suffers from being made in a post Lord of the Rings-movies world.
Bear with me for a second here. The LotR movies had massive battles, groundbreaking CGI sequences, and very, very excellent costuming. Many fantasy movies coming out after LotR try for the same sense of scale, the epic quality of battles like the relief of Helm's Deep, the fantastic drama of horses running in slow motion, the clash of silver plate against matte black. The fight with the cave troll in Fellowship, the Ents bringing down Isengard, the magic, Legolas having the reflexes to actually treat a bow slightly like an assault rifle . . . .
The problem with all these younger movies is that they fail to grasp--even more than the battle choreography at Gondor, which is bad enough--the underpinnings of how battles like that work. It's one thing to charge down a hill with a wizard in your front line to crush a besieging army against the walls of a castle, especially when the people inside the castle are making it a two-front affair.
It's another to run your horses full-tilt through a forest to find a prepared, ranked enemy army . . and then attack.
Because that's how pre-industrial warfare works. Everything is full-plate CHAAAAAARGE.
Sure it is. Horses don't get tired! Humans can't skewer horses and other humans by building extremely pointy shield walls at all. Supply chains aren't what really control how well armies can fight, either.
I actually mentally got away with the prologue battle scenes much the same way I got away with the ridiculousness of Sparta: this isn't what's actually happening, it's hyperbolic storytelling with live-action illustrations.
So that was okay.
The final battle . . uh, no. Massing on a hill so that the enemy castle can see you perfectly is dumb.
Massing on a hill, looking at the tide on the beach you apparently have to cross in order to get at the enemy castle (despite the earlier implications that there's a decent cart-road that runs through a ratty village through to the castle), and then deciding to charge across rapidly liquefying sand at the castle front gate and the trebuchets and archers on the walls of said is really, really stupid.
It's all Spectacle, with no thought behind it--hence, suffers from being made post LotR movies.
See, thought could have said: 'All right. We need to get Snow White into the castle to get at the Queen. We need her to be looking at something other than Snow White, so the kid's armed when she gets there, as opposed to trussed up like a Christmas goose.
Okay. We can assault the castle with an army that makes her think this is the main thrust, while Snow White and a much smaller group sneak the fuck into the castle? Everybody good with this level of risk? Cool. Let's go.'
Then we get the massive spectacle battle, but it's got thought behind it. It doesn't even take a lot of thought! I'm not asking for omg realism, just give me enough that I can ignore the problems! I find the Bone-Witchy aspects of your story intriguing!
Argh. Ahem.
. . I may still wind up with a couple new characters from this. I'm hoping just the Deaths version coalesces. Throwing anything more into Witches' Horses needs a whole new story*, not just a gentleman soldier who likes axes and his Jewish wife.
*: Well, really. Where the hell would I fit a succession war led by a boyar's daughter and a guy who had a bad war into the current list of Witches' Horses stories? =P
At the same time, I did not love it enough to be happy seeing it a second or third time. Which is annoying, because I really liked a couple of characters and found others compelling, and I'd like to see them again.
I feel like this movie suffers from two big problems. Neither of these are the acting. The performances ran a gamut from trying (our dear William) through to genuinely good (the Huntsman and the Queen, with Snow White running close behind mostly due to a dearth of lines).
No, problem number one is the unevenness of the script. We whiplash back and forth from actually rather subtle* to hamfisted**.
*: what we're told of the Queen's history, the dressing prep the Queen was going through before being married, the progression of the Huntsman's attitude towards Snow White, the apple blossoms, as examples
**: oh my god the rallying speech. That's not Ms Stewart's delivery at all, she's doing her best, that's really bad writing. Really, really bad. So is most of the exposition in Sanctuary; there are better ways to give background on the dwarves, and to sketch Snow's connection to her land.
I could have handled a hamfisted script. It's not my favourite approach to movie-watching, but hell, I can watch Chronicles of Riddick without wincing.
I can handle a subtle script; again, not my favourite approach to movie-watching, but that's mostly because they don't tend to really interesting action scenes. (The Bourne Identity is an exception. The American is not.)
It's the damned whiplash that gives me problems with this script. I can't watch the sequence of Ravenna being dressed for her wedding without later wondering who on earth is getting her into the fantasy-villain costumes (Who's making those things?). I can't see the apple tree in fruit and flower at the same time without later wondering why almost all the magic we see is directly associated with Ravenna, and only Ravenna. Why is the Church only present for coronations? Why is there only one prayer in the whole of the movie?
It's hard to reconcile the obvious background familiarity of snarking at and using the Huntsman as a pinata while you've got him strung up by his ankles and then infodumping all the dwarvish history at the viewer. One or the other, guys, you make me really frustrated like this. I can't turn my brain off and just wait for the booms, because I'm actually interested in these characters. ARGH.
Similarly, we progress through locations more as [Scene] [tiny transition] [Scene!] [Scene] [tiny transition] than organically, with many rather lovely special effects being used in a way that doesn't further the plot at all*.
*: Two examples:
What subtle background hinting we get of the Queen's history doesn't actually excuse the milk bath sequence. Which could have been handled better, in both senses of the word: we could have gotten the background hinting elsewhere, and if she's bathing in milk as a beauty regime why is that the only time we see her doing anything non-magical in relation to her looks?
The White Hart sequence could have been cut entirely and the movie would have been better for it, especially given five minutes' worth of other padding into other scenes wherein we get the sense that places and people are better for Snow White being around them, and the seer of the dwarves giving timely warning a couple of times.
Problem number two is that this movie suffers from being made in a post Lord of the Rings-movies world.
Bear with me for a second here. The LotR movies had massive battles, groundbreaking CGI sequences, and very, very excellent costuming. Many fantasy movies coming out after LotR try for the same sense of scale, the epic quality of battles like the relief of Helm's Deep, the fantastic drama of horses running in slow motion, the clash of silver plate against matte black. The fight with the cave troll in Fellowship, the Ents bringing down Isengard, the magic, Legolas having the reflexes to actually treat a bow slightly like an assault rifle . . . .
The problem with all these younger movies is that they fail to grasp--even more than the battle choreography at Gondor, which is bad enough--the underpinnings of how battles like that work. It's one thing to charge down a hill with a wizard in your front line to crush a besieging army against the walls of a castle, especially when the people inside the castle are making it a two-front affair.
It's another to run your horses full-tilt through a forest to find a prepared, ranked enemy army . . and then attack.
Because that's how pre-industrial warfare works. Everything is full-plate CHAAAAAARGE.
Sure it is. Horses don't get tired! Humans can't skewer horses and other humans by building extremely pointy shield walls at all. Supply chains aren't what really control how well armies can fight, either.
I actually mentally got away with the prologue battle scenes much the same way I got away with the ridiculousness of Sparta: this isn't what's actually happening, it's hyperbolic storytelling with live-action illustrations.
So that was okay.
The final battle . . uh, no. Massing on a hill so that the enemy castle can see you perfectly is dumb.
Massing on a hill, looking at the tide on the beach you apparently have to cross in order to get at the enemy castle (despite the earlier implications that there's a decent cart-road that runs through a ratty village through to the castle), and then deciding to charge across rapidly liquefying sand at the castle front gate and the trebuchets and archers on the walls of said is really, really stupid.
It's all Spectacle, with no thought behind it--hence, suffers from being made post LotR movies.
See, thought could have said: 'All right. We need to get Snow White into the castle to get at the Queen. We need her to be looking at something other than Snow White, so the kid's armed when she gets there, as opposed to trussed up like a Christmas goose.
Okay. We can assault the castle with an army that makes her think this is the main thrust, while Snow White and a much smaller group sneak the fuck into the castle? Everybody good with this level of risk? Cool. Let's go.'
Then we get the massive spectacle battle, but it's got thought behind it. It doesn't even take a lot of thought! I'm not asking for omg realism, just give me enough that I can ignore the problems! I find the Bone-Witchy aspects of your story intriguing!
Argh. Ahem.
. . I may still wind up with a couple new characters from this. I'm hoping just the Deaths version coalesces. Throwing anything more into Witches' Horses needs a whole new story*, not just a gentleman soldier who likes axes and his Jewish wife.
*: Well, really. Where the hell would I fit a succession war led by a boyar's daughter and a guy who had a bad war into the current list of Witches' Horses stories? =P