Summary
A visually lavish but uneven reimagining, this musical update of the classic tale makes it clear which is the fairest of them all.
In recent years, watching Disney’s live-action remakes has felt like gazing into the Magic Mirror and asking, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” Their inescapable ties to beloved classics ensure constant comparison to the originals, and Snow White is no exception. With her legacy as the first lady of Disney’s animation empire, the challenge of reimagining her story in the 21st century might be like bobbing for poisoned apples.
As hard as it is to believe now, in a time when you can stream an animated original film from your phone, many believed in 1937 that nobody would sit still for 90 minutes of a feature cartoon. This is why the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was dubbed “Walt’s Folly.” Yet today, its success laid the foundation for Disney’s animation empire, influencing everything from hand-drawn classics to billion-dollar franchises like Frozen. The challenge for any remake, then, is not just to pay homage but to justify its own existence.
Marc Webb’s remake retains the opening storybook motif that evoked a “European storybook feel” in the original, but the visual similarities end there. Where original director David Hand and his animation team used the then-revolutionary multiplane camera to push us through the forest, Webb’s book is pried open by anthropomorphic CG animals.
The story follows many of the same beats we know but sets itself apart from the original almost immediately with a song-and-dance number showing how Snow White (Rachel Zegler) became the orphaned stepchild of the vain and selfish Queen (Gal Gadot). As the kingdom rapidly transforms from a place of joy to one of poverty, the arrival of a handsome young thief, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), sparks Snow White’s desire to explore the outside world.
From here, the story swings between the familiar—the Mirror on the wall, the Queen’s jealousy, the huntsman, and Snow White’s exile—but is stylistically filtered through a myriad of influences. The dark forest glows with a heightened red hue, its trees grasping at Snow like a Sam Raimi entity. Jonathan has a band of merry men, evoking a cross between Robin Hood and Tangled’s Flynn Rider. Meanwhile, the animals are both photorealistic and imbued with wide-eyed, expressive faces.
One of the more contentious aspects is the portrayal of the seven dwarfs, given concerns about perpetuating negative stereotypes of people with dwarfism. Disney sidesteps this by making them entirely computer generated and referring to them as ‘magical’ creatures. Yet no sooner can you say ‘Heigh Ho’ than we find ourselves deep in the uncanny valley, cavorting with beings that are neither human nor cartoon. Worse still, they serve little purpose to the story, their function having now largely been replaced by Jonathan’s gang.
Where SNOW WHITE truly distinguishes itself is in its songbook, featuring an original set of tunes by composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land, The Greatest Showman). While few stand out as distinctive bops or prove as catchy as more recent Disney fare—save perhaps the amusing Princess Problems—all serve the story through song. This is also where Zegler shines as a performer, belting out big numbers like her signature character tune, Waiting on a Wish.
The same cannot be said for Gadot, who fails to bring any gravitas to the Queen. The role demands high camp, and while Gadot may pass the Susan Sontag test of being failed seriousness, her attempts at anger generate unintentional laughs rather than menace. Her performance in All Is Fair strains her vocal limits, though a later sequence while poisoning apples lands more effectively.
When Disney first released this story in the 1930s, it was to an audience who didn’t know they needed it. SNOW WHITE arrives without a clear audience. While it deserves credit for necessary updates to the narrative—including a neat nod to the infamous non-consensual kiss at the end—this reboot struggles to balance broad branding with a desire to modernise the story, ultimately feeling stuck between obligation and reinvention.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Marc Webb | WRITER: Erin Cressida Wilson (Based on Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) | CAST: Rachel Zegler, Andrew Burnap, Gal Gadot | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 March 2025 (Australia), 21 March 2025 (USA)
