It's the unnecessary prequel/sequel to a movie that no one originally wanted. Admittedly, I haven't seen the original, but honestly, I don't think you're missing much by just watching this. The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a story of an Ice Queen who, in one of the most extreme cases of post-natal depression forms a child-soldier-militia just because and then chooses to do nothing for seven years whilst the Snow White story happened in the first film. Yeah, it’s one of those kinds of films…
The film has a strong cast with three of Hollywood's strongest leading ladies and Chris Hemsworth, who I imagine got paid more than all three women combined to do another contractually obligatory shirtless shot and just be a Thor-like badass. However the real stars are the three leading ladies with Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain being awesome in their respective roles. You have Charlize being just stunning in every scene, you have Blunt being cold-hearted-resting-witch-face the whole way through the film, and you have Chastain being a bad-ass but just mangling a sometimes Irish/sometimes Scottish accent. As a matter of fact she and Hemsworth almost seem to be competing for who can do the most confusing accent with Hemsworth sounding at times like Thor, at times Australian and other times a weird Scottish/Irish hybrid...
As far as the film goes, it's a safe movie with safe humour and safe action where there are countless disposable extras to pick off whilst the near indestructible-Liam-Neeson-in-Taken-level leads seemingly die in nearly every scene only to actually survive to the point where sometimes they can't be bothered explaining how they actually survived said death traps.
The special effects are admittedly awesome and everywhere in this film to the point that I can only assume that's why the film couldn't afford a full seven Dwarves and a Snow White. Now if rumours from behind the scenes of the first film are true then it's no wonder that the film is not shy about avoid Kristen Stewart and her one facial expression, but once again, the big story is the casting of the dwarves and the typical Hollywood "Tall-Washing" of the casting choices. Sure Nick Frost and Rob Brydon are great in their roles but there's no denying that these roles could have gone to Peter Dinklage or.... or... I don't know, is that guy from the old U2 music video still alive?
Overall, I can't really tell you if it's better or worse than the original but it is a perfectly acceptable piece of escapism for its one hour and fifty-four minute runtime. If you are hoping for lots of Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt action be warned that the trailers are incredibly misleading with regards to how much screen time to expect. But the will they/won't they/they definitely will chemistry between Hemsworth and Chastain is certainly worth it, if not a little infuriating with the lazy reasoning behind will they or won't they...
The Huntsman: Winter's War gets Three out of Five unnecessary Stars for an unnecessary prequel/sequel whatever the f*ck this is.
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