DIRECTOR: Cedric
Nicolas-Troyan STARRING:Chris Hemsworth, Jessica Chastain, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Colin Morgan, Nick Frost, Sam Claflin, Rob Brydon PRODUCER:
Joe Roth EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:Sarah Bradshaw,
Palak Patel SCREENWRITERS: Craig Mazin,Evan Spiliotopoul BASED ON:Characters by Evan Daugherty FILM
EDITOR: Conrad
Buff IV MUSIC:James
Newton Howard ART DIRECTOR & VISUAL
EFFECTS: Steve Street GENRE:Fantasy, Adventure,
Action, Drama CINEMATOGRAPHER:
Phedon
Papamichael PRODUCTION
DESIGN: Dominic Watkins PRODUCTION
COMPANIES: Perfect
World Pictures, Roth Films
DISTRIBUTORS: Universal
Pictures COUNTRIES:
United Kingdom, United States LANGUAGE:
English RUNNING TIME: 114minutes
Technical Assessment:
3
Moral Assessment: 3
Cinema Rating:V13
A prequel to Snow
White and the Hunstman, the story happens many years before the Snow
White’s story. The evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) has a sister, Freya
(Emily Blunt), whose magical cryokinenetic powers—the power to use cold and ice
in physical combat—awaken following the mysterious death of her only child. She leaves her sister's kingdom and
establishes her own empire in the icy North. She abducts children from
villages, and raises them to be her soldiers—hunstmen. Two of these children
are Eric and Sara (Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain), who grow to become
her finest huntsmen. And in spite of Queen Freya's rules against love, the two
fall in love. Queen Freya uses her magic to separate them, and Eric, believing
that Sara is murdered, spends the next seven years mourning her death. Things take
a different turn, when the Ice Queen Freya hunts for the magic mirror which used
to belong to Queen Ravena, now believed to be dead.
The Hunstman: Winter’s War takes a different turn on the original popular fairy tale, Snow
White. Here, the audience will only hear the name of the famous
princess who will not really appear in the picture. The result is pretty
interesting, although one can sense that the film is having quite a difficulty
in terms of focus and real identity. Although the two huntsmen are in the
center of a love story, the sister/rival queens seem to be more interesting characters.
The acting is fine. Hemsworth and Chastain are able to deliver although as
lovers in the story, there should perhaps be more justification to endear them
to the audience. Blunt is terrific and Theron is as fierce as ever although she
lacks the needed exposure to establish more tension in the story. Elaborate production design and visual
effects are effective, making The Huntsman: Winter’s War in its
totality a feel-good and an enjoyable watch only despite its weaknesses.
The film is very clear on its theme as it is verbalized quite a few
times – “love conquers all.” It
refers mainly to the romance built between Eric and Sara amid the strong rule
of the ice queen not to love. Although the love the queen is referring to is
love in general so it also applies to kinds of love other than the romantic one.
The
Huntsman: Winter’s War is able to deliver the message loud and clear.
Freya’s traumatic experience brought out the worst in her and her outrage and
anger turned her into a cold being – literally and figuratively. Her heart
turned not just cold but as hard as ice. The film clearly defines hatred, greed
and vanity as evil. Ravena
symbolizes the evil of all evils. Freya’s circumstance made her evil for a time
but then, goodness in her heart still triumphed in the end as it is her real
nature. It may have been hard at first to accept her sudden change of heart
just because of one traumatic experience—but then, that could be very human of
her to feel hate and anger. Her
remorse towards the end is a redeeming factor. The bond between Eric and Sara
could have been stronger had there been more tension and emotions at stake. But
shallow or not, love is love, is able to conquer the evil of evils, and it is
maybe enough that the message “love conquers all” comes across loud and clear. The
violence in the movie, although in context, must be explained to the very young
audience.
