THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR – Review

A trio of A-list actresses – Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, and Jessica Chastain – look great in Colleen Atwood’s costumes but are otherwise wasted in the joyless and bland THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR. And while the trailer makes it look like a battle of badass beauties, two of these actresses (the ones who play the most interesting characters) are off-screen for most of the film’s running time. I did not see SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN but I hope it was better than this lame sequel/prequel.

THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR opens with a prologue detailing the backstory of how evil queen Ravenna (Theron reprising her role) caused her sister Freya (Blunt) to join her wicked ways. Freya, who controls ice (just like Elsa in FROZEN!) had become pregnant by a betrothed man who she ends up killing after blaming him for the death of her child. She then becomes the ‘Ice Queen’ who establishes her kingdom by kidnapping kids and training them to be warriors she calls huntsmen. Chris Hemsworth’s Eric and Jessica Chastain’s Sara are introduced as abducted child soldiers kidnapped from their homes and forced to pillage the countryside as members of Freya’s army. Sara and Eric have fallen in love, something forbidden by Freya who literally separates the pair with one of her magic ice walls and leaves the lovers each thinking that the other is dead. The story then jumps ahead seven years (after the events of SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN) where Eric, now accompanied by two of Snow White’s dwarfs (Nick Frost and Rob Brydon – it’s unexplained what happened to the other five) is assigned with finding a magic mirror before Freya gets her hands on it. Sara joins him in this long middle section, which is basically an episodic, Hobbit-like woodland trek with a few CGI beasts along the way.

THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR is very dark and very dull. Novice director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan designed the special effects for the previous Huntsman film, and his visuals here crib from that film – there’s not even a sense of originality in the fantasy world-building. His directorial inexperience shows with no sense of pacing as he’s unable to give THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR a pulse. The movie just sits up there on screen, marching lazily through its paces without ever springing to life. Everything looks either sleek and shiny or foreboding and grimy, a Lord of the Rings-meets-Game of Thrones bedtime story with a confusing tone that will likely puzzle younger viewers accustomed to clearer motives for characters. The effects look expensive but they never look real, more like cartoons, or computer-game graphics, at odds with its live action. There are a few moments of visual magic in the details; a hissing snake with grass for skin and the shattering of an alabaster owl, but we mostly get lots of scenes with Freya conjuring up walls of ice while Ravenna lashes out with inky black tendrils like Spidey’s foe Venom.

Charlize Theron seems to be the only one onscreen having fun, camping and vamping like a pro, but after the opening sequence she vanishes for a solid 80 minutes and by the time she reappears, I’d lost interest. Emily Blunt underplays her role. I guess they didn’t want a scenery chewing contest between the sisters but while Blunt utters her dialogue with an air of heavy significance, she mostly just seems bored.  Hemsworth is given little to do in terms of challenging his range He can’t keep his hands off of Jessica Chastain, who looks good shooting arrows but is mostly wasted. The dwarfs are supposed to provide comic relief which may have worked had they been given anything funny to say or do (the dwarfettes don’t help). It’s worthwhile to see a big-budget blockbuster centered on women but there is no memorable dialogue in Evan Spiliotpoulos and Craig Mazin’s screenplay, just long stretches of tedium. With little entertainment value, thin characters, no momentum, and a dismal tone that will depress you and your kids, THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR doesn’t work at all.

1 of 5 Stars