The Huntsman: Winter's War

2016 "The story before Snow White"
6.1| 1h54m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 22 April 2016 Released
Producted By: Universal Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.thehuntsmanmovie.com/
Synopsis

As two evil sisters prepare to conquer the land, two renegades—Eric the Huntsman, who aided Snow White in defeating Ravenna in Snowwhite and the Huntsman, and his forbidden lover, Sara—set out to stop them.

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gcsman I saw this recently on Netflix; I enjoyed it and now I kind of wish I'd seen it in the theater. As a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) which had reasonable and well deserved success, this one stands up well. The first one took the bare bones of the Snow White fairy tale (the captive princess, the evil witch queen, dwarfs, the poisoned apple, and a prince) and built a lot of extra stuff around it to make a thoroughly enjoyable 2 hours of fantasy-adventure. This second one is an entirely new story owing almost nothing to the fairytale but again, it's a fun 2 hours with many of the same advantages: great atmospheric wilderness settings, characters with at least a little bit of depth to them, and overall a good-natured feel to it -- yes, evil has its innings, the perils are convincingly dire and frightening, but we know that love and goodness will triumph.There are 4 almost-equal lead actors (Chris Hemsworth, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt, Charlize Theron), so lots of star power -- and can you think of ANY other fantasy adventure with three female leads? I can't. Sign of things to come, I hope. They're all good. Just like in the first one, Hemsworth isn't the imperious God of Thunder here; he plays an action hero all right, bumore of an affable guy. He's kind of clumsy at times, and the fight scenes tend to be a bit of a mess. Winning ugly is more his style here. Of the leads, Hemsworth (Australian) and Chastain (American) affect Scottish accents, and pretty strong ones too. Blunt (English) and Theron (South African), on the other hand, stick to fairly normal movie-American accents. Theron plays Ravenna once again as an irredeemably and self-indulgently evil queen and chews the scenery along the way -- but isn't that just what an evil fairytale queen is supposed to do? She sells it. Blunt provides a nice contrast as her sister. She's been pushed into evil position, but isn't irredeemable. I won't give away the surprises that come along as the characters mix and match, but they give the storyline added richness.The settings and set designs are I think first-rate. They have almost a Middle-Earth kind of feel to them. Blunt's snow-queen hairdo by itself is totally impressive -- a lot of thought went into that, and much else besides. Ravenna, who could turn herself into a flock of evil black birds in Snow White, can do the same this time but the birds now are golden, a result of her absorption by the mirror and her only half-present state.And, we get some dwarfs again, this time with two men and two women (though once again, they are normal-size actors and actresses visually de-sized on the screen. Hmm -- there are actual dwarf actors available who might like the work, so why not?). They provide most of the comic relief, but in a nicely different way than with the seven in Snow White; there's a lot of fun byplay amongst the two pairs, and all four have clearly different personalities.As a whole the story is surprisingly good! It's not a trite, by-the-numbers production that so many sequels are. It keeps a number of things that worked in the first one, but goes its own course. Best of all, the plot and dialog are sometimes unpredictable -- there are real twists. I also liked that the film borrowed certain settings and background from the first film without explaining them all over again. For example, interesting fairy creatures in the woods hop in and out (so no, they weren't all destroyed in the first outing, thankfully) but almost never actually influence any of the goings-on; they're just around to add charm. If you want to gauge how much thought goes into a movie or stage play production, a good indicator is often to look at how much is going on in the background.Not deep, but well done entertainment. If you've been missing Lord of the Rings-type movies, this one and its predecessor will keep you going.
Lynne P One star for the dwarves because they are funny (and good in this), one for Emily Blunt because I love her (she's great in this too) and one for Chris Hemsworth because he's gorgeous and everything else about this movie is god awful. This is another one of those movies with shoddy writers must have written this by throwing darts at a board... ok so the darts landed on 1) quest for lost item 2) evil queen 3) love wins and 4) couple who hates but secretly loves each other ...but that's not even the worst of it. Jessica Chastains terrible Scottish accent is encredibly distracting, I mean it is god AWEFUL! Why the director didn't just tell her to stop and use her own accent, I have no idea but he/she should have. It's very obvious that she's not pulling it off so that was a massive drop of the ball from the director. Chris' isn't much better ether but his Australian accent covers it up a bit.The chemistry between JC and CH is non existent and the one liners are boring and predictable. I haven't watched Enchanted but it seems like this might be the live action version of that, it's also very close to the Chrinicals of Narnia. The ice queen story has been done before and it's always done the same so something new for her story would be nice because she's a cool idea.This movie would have been better as a made for TV movie because it reminds me of those awesome but cheesy D&D Sunday night TV movies. That way they wouldn't have wasted all that money and people wouldn't have disliked it so much because they would have accepted it for what it is and not expected to much from it.
meraioana The movie is OK on its own...sort of. It just feels so disjointed from the previous one. Even the feel of it is off. I wish they wouldn't have warped the entire story and I believe they should have still gone with Stewart despite the scandal. I thoroughly enjoyed Snow White and the Huntsman, where the huntsman had a connection to her...while here, the romance seems flimsy and lacks depth, the imagery is off as well, everything is way too happy - you can easily tell it's a different director. Furthermore, because of the feelings he made known in the previous film, the huntsman's relationship his 'beloved' feels false and forced. Basically, if they weren't going to carry on with the tone and direction of the initial movie, they should have just left it alone.
Dark Jedi This is kind of a prequel and a sequel to Snow White and The Huntsman. It is not as impressive as the first movie but quite good anyway. I would call it a nice family movie although probably not for the youngest members of the family.The story is partly before and partly after the events in Snow White and The Huntsman. It is a good adventure with plenty of magic and special effects and a fair bit of action. It is a fairly straightforward story without much in terms of surprises.There is a bit of comical relief in particular by the dwarfs, especially when the two dwarfs following the huntsman encounters the grumpy female one and her friend.Apart from the classical Snow White setting, quite good special effects and quite decent action this is a fairly normal fantasy adventure movie. It is about two hours of good fun but does not really reach wow-status.