Live-action ‘Snow White’ stumbles
Disney’s live-action adaptations of its own properties continue apace, with no slowing down in the foreseeable future. “Snow White” may be the latest attempt, but in less than two months we’ll be seeing the next, when “Lilo & Stitch” marches into theaters. Next year, “Moana” will make landfall, with “Hercules,” “Robin Hood,” “The Aristocats,” and “Tangled” all in the works. While “Cinderella” and the most recent venture, “Mufasa: The Lion King” (though its being “live-action” might be debated, being a mostly computer-generated affair), have justified their existence, the larger problem is that the rest haven’t, with diminished returns when compared to their original inspirations. Alas, such is the case yet again with “Snow White,” which, while featuring a radiant central performance from Rachel Zegler, is unsuccessful at escaping the pitfalls such adaptations typically fall into.
While taking inspiration from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, “Snow White” is very much based on Disney’s cartoon version, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” originally released in 1937. That 88-year-old classic was a watershed achievement for Walt Disney, a crown jewel of that era for the Disney entertainment empire and animation in general (the first American feature-length cartoon!). The story remains familiar: a kind, loving, royal couple have a child born during a snowstorm that they name Snow White; they raise her to be just as kind and loving as they are, but tragedy befalls them when the Queen falls ill and dies. After a few years, a strikingly beautiful woman makes herself known, entrances the King, marries him, then convinces him there’s a threat from foreign lands that sends him away to confront, but he and his cohort seem to disappear with no word. Now the Kingdom is under the sway of the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), and Snow White has been relegated to not much more than the household help. The subjects are suffering and starving, and things are at a tipping point.
New songs
Some classic songs remain, and others get expanded or updated, but there are also some new originals courtesy of songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, whose work you may know from “The Greatest Showman” and “Dear Evan Hansen.” “A Hand Meets A Hand” is the standout among the new set, the “falling in love” duet between Zegler’s Snow White and Andrew Burnap’s Jonathan, leader of a gang of bandits stealing food to feed the starving (no Prince Charming here).
Zegler seems born for musicals, but once again, after “West Side Story,” she’s paired up against someone she outshines with next to no effort. Gal Gadot plods along, over the top in such a way that it’s not even enjoyable as camp. Those Evil Queen theme park performers that went viral do such a great job that it seems a shame they didn’t just use them; the role could’ve used that mordant wit. There’s only so much audio processing can do, and then when Snow White gets another number the contrast becomes glaring. With his theater background, Burnap fares much better, his roguish charm and physicality bolstering the physical humor his character finds himself in.
The seven dwarfs are perplexing. Computer-generated creations, voiced ably by more theater performers (notably, Titus Burgess [“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”] as Bashful and Andrew Barth Feldman [“No Hard Feelings”] as Dopey), their designs are off-putting at best and the stuff of nightmares at worst. Dopey shoulders some of the emotional weight in this iteration, and while Feldman does a decent job of it, Dopey’s face looks like Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman sired a son.
It’s also vaguely disappointing that it feels like “Snow White” could’ve used a bigger budget, or director Marc Webb didn’t have much time to work some movie magic. While there is detail in the graphics, the effects work doesn’t stand out and often the visuals lean toward the murky goop that a lot of digital-heavy movies dole out. But even the staging of some musical numbers and climactic sequences fall flat, or are lifeless, like there wasn’t enough coverage to cut to. There was more vitality and invention in his pilot for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”
Marc Platt serves as producer on this, but it’s so outclassed by his other recent musical adaptation, “Wicked,” that one has to wonder if this got the short end of his busy schedule. It’s too bad; while it may have been too much to expect another watershed for Disney, it could at least have been more lively and engaging than what we got. Here’s hoping Zegler has better luck next time.
