Snow White

“Disney’s “Snow White” is a vibrant live-action musical reimagining of Walt Disney’s groundbreaking full-length animated classic. Experience the timeless adventure as Snow White (Rachel Zegler) journeys into magical woods to escape her stepmother, the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), and meets the beloved Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Happy, Dopey, Grumpy and Doc who join her quest to restore the kingdom and bring kindness to the land.”

It wouldn’t be a Disney film without controversy, backlash, and review bombing to lead in to another live-action remake of one of their oldest and most beloved cartoon films.

While some of the previous live action conversions seemed entirely unnecessary (i.e. The Lion King being a shot for shot remake basically), Snow White had the potential to be updated not just to re-introduce a timeless character to a new generation, but to update and expand upon the story. In many ways, it does succeed. It weaves the story into something more coherent for the 21^st century, both thematically and visually, and despite some parts of the film not working as well as others, as a whole, the film can be quite enjoyable.

Now, you may be taking a look at the IMDB score and say to yourself “How?” Well, it’s hard to separate the controversy and the hatred from the finished product. It’s not perfect, far from it, but there is just enough to like, for me at least, than many of the previous cartoon to live-action remakes.

The musical numbers I actually quite enjoyed. There are a lot of expansions on the original songs, such as the “Heigh Ho” song, which also expands on the scene of them in the mines working diligently digging for precious gemstones within the rock. The sequence is funny, clever, and visually engaging as the dwarves speed down mining carts about to fly off the rails. I also enjoyed their inclusion in the “Whistle While You Work” sequence, instead of just finding their house in immaculate condition, they help to clean it, diffusing tensions among them in combined efforts to accomplish this shared task. It further develops the different dwarf characters and helps to teach valuable lessons to a younger audience. You know, what children’s films are made for?

Rachel Zegler, I thought, portrayed Snow White exactly how she should have. There’s no way the character could have stayed the same, nor I think would anyone have found that entertaining. With the evolution of films, cartoons, stories in general, and the sheer amount of content there is for children these days, a film like the original Snow White would have done more poorly than this one. Her character is three dimensional, she has leadership qualities demonstrated in how she cares about the people in her kingdom. Anyone who equates ethnic background to the ability to portray any kind of character is unequivocally wrong and is most likely incapable of finding any enjoyment in anything in this world.

Gal Gadot seems to have gotten a lot of flak for her role. She plays the Evil Queen as sinister, over-the-top, and one dimensional. These are the traits of a Disney villain, right? Gal Gadot was far from the worst thing about Snow White, although I do think her character could have benefitted from some better writing or possible better direction at delivery.

None of what I heard in the backlash about this film bothered me in the least. None of it. Perhaps it’s because I can look at a film objectively and not be influenced by hype, or lack of? Or maybe it’s because I don’t take any change to an intellectual property as a personal affront to my very being. Things change. Things evolve. Snow White is for children of a new generation, not nostalgia-hungry keyboard warriors who have to make sure their objection is loudly heard. Now, as I step down off my soapbox, there are a few things in this film which I think culminate into this being a very lackluster film. Mostly: scope. Being one of the top Disney Princess films, and just the overall look of the trailer, you’d think the film overall would maintain that kind of scope throughout. It doesn’t, and there are parts of it that look laughable and like it was set up, filmed and acted by a LARPing group in a park. No offense to those who LARP, but their costumes don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars, and these surely do, but they don’t look it, at all. There is a scene in the woods where some fighting begins where it looks as though someone just threw a pile of leaves in the air and cut to it quickly to make it look like naturally falling leaves, but it was just one big clump. Additionally, there is literally a scene in which one of the actors gets up and falls over a chair in the background. Is this supposed to be in the film? The group of ‘thieves’ don’t really have much development save for the leader, so who knows if it’s supposed to be a character trait of one of them or just poor direction, regardless, it’s entirely distracting and contributes to this low budget feel of a film that reportedly cost over 270 million to make.

Overall, Snow White has some entertaining moments, but the film can’t decide whether it’s going for epic large-scale blockbuster or play in the park type vibe, and that just leaves the viewer confused and unable to commit fully to the story. This will likely be a non-issue for children. Just as children for close to a century enjoyed Snow White for the magical atmosphere, those same elements will also appeal to them here. It doesn’t capture the same kind of magic as effectively, but it’s there, with some humble themes to teach them as well.

We were given a digital code to review Snow White, which is now available for purchase digitally. The 4k and Blu-ray will be released on 6/24/25. Disney is continuing its trend of bleeding physical media customers dry, only releasing the 4k in a SteelBook edition retailing $50. While I would normally say to wait for the physical copy if you’re a fan of the film, with their track record at the moment of no effort going into their physical releases (as you can’t even chapter skip on their Disney+ physical releases) I’d say do what makes most sense. Either way, this one is out now for purchase digitally if you so desire.