[Rating: Rock First Way Down]
In 1937, Walt Disney did what many thought impossible and produced the first animated feature film in the United States, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Though the phrase “it all began with a mouse” radiates through the Disney company, it was this full length animated feature that sealed the deal to make the Disney company a full-fledged animated powerhouse.
Nearly 90 years later, the original spark and magic of Disney studios has faded. They’ve increasingly relied on poor sequels and unattractive “live-action” remakes.
The latest Snow White film exemplifies this decline, feeling like a realization of the historical “Disney’s Folly” – a once-feared outcome for their animated features – now unfortunately true in 2025.
Much like its animated ancestor, Snow White is the age-old story: Young Snow White (Rachel Zegler) loses a mother and father, and resorts to being a scullery maid for her new stepmother The Queen (Gal Gadot). The Queen wants to kill Snow because she is the fairest in the land and so hires a huntsman to kill Snow, but he backs out of the gig, sending Snow into the dark woods.
There, she meets seven dwarfs Doc (Jeremy Swift), Bashful (Tituss Burgess), Grumpy (Martin Klebba), Sneezy (Jason Kravits), Happy (George Salazar), Sleepy (Andy Grotelueschen) and Dopey (Andrew Barth Feldman) who take her in and they sing happy songs.
The added material to this remake is Snow White meeting a rebel thief, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) and his band of thieves who defy the queen. With Snow White and the dwarfs, they want to enact a plan to take back the Kingdom and displace the Queen. Will goodness and fairness win, or will wickedness and beauty prevail?!
Who cares?
I love Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I hated pretty much everything about this. The dwarves reach the uncanny valley so fast, it’s terrifying that anybody at Disney approved of them. They are lifeless and soulless.
One of the best original songs (“Silly Song”) that finds Dopey dancing with Snow is left out, only making things worse. Zegler is fine but honestly feels like she isn’t having any fun or joy with the role. Gadot is allowed to sing whatever song was written for her by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, but by god the woman can’t act or sing. We are better off with whatever something the Disney Channel original movie Descendants could ever give us.
The stakes are so low that this has the most anticlimactic ending you could ever think of. It’s as if director Marc Webb forgot he had to end this somehow not with Snow White being kissed and saved, but with whatever the hell the ending of this is.
Even the apple scene…the apple scene for goodness sake seemed an afterthought. Isn’t the poison apple what makes Snow White so iconic? I keep giving these movies a chance because I see most everything and want to get them out of the way.
This one hurt like hell and I don’t wish this movie on anybody. Who is really to blame though? Disney who obviously wants the money and knows what will bring in the bucks, or audiences for not giving the original content a chance and being subjected to these god-awful remakes.
Poison apple for your thoughts.
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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