review: THE HUNTSMEN - WINTER'S WAR

Five Year Old Girls Wouldn't Buy This Story

half star

Mini Review:

Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt play dress up and do such silly things, even five year old girls who walk around in their mommy's high heels will be bored watching the unoriginal, silly story.

Main Review:

Remember Snow White? And how though the movie wasn't much the special effects were? How you were gobsmacked at the gold melting mirror, and the evil queen's dress that turned into birds? The sequel is here to disappoint you on many, many levels.

The evil queen is dead, and Snow White rules over happy lands. So what new story could you weave? Go back a bit in time and add a character: evil queen's love lorn sister. The evil queen insists on something like, 'There is evil inside you, tap into it.' When the sister asks, 'How?', the evil queen turns her sister into... Wait for it... Elsa from Frozen! While originality begins to gasp for air, we are shown more nonsense that is straight out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... Flashes of deja vu continue through the movie, and you need something stronger than caffeine to stop yourself from groaning.

Indians love mythology and we made careers of stars like NTR by casting them as Krishna in movies. But even we have now confined costume dramas to the small screen (Suryaputra Karan, Sankat Mochan Hanuman, Jodha Akbar, Ashoka and their ilk). Why on Earth is Hollywood still stuck on fairy tales that are daft when told without any twist whatsoever. Is Snow White were a horror movie, maybe there would be a glimmer or hope. But they think getting stars like Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain to play star crossed lovers playing with bows and arrows. Their conversation is so stilted, you can see how uncomfortable they seem 'acting'. In every scene Jessica Chastain seems so distracted, you wonder if she's still looking out Osama Bin Laden.

The funny dwarfs, the firefly like creatures, the bear/snow-leopard creature the Snow Queen rides, the goblin chief... are such cliches you emerge from the movie exhausted. Charlize Theron's dead evil queen shows up again, but even then, the story feels like they've been flogging a dead horse. You wish Surya Putra Karan shows up to shoot one last arrow that splits into two to kill that golden bird from the evil queen's dress that takes flight, and the second to the voiceover that promises yet another sequel by saying, 'Evil doesn't die, now, does it?'