Winning the war

Johnson Thomas

This follow-up prequel to 2012’s ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ has Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron back in the saddle, but without the formidable presence of Kristen Stewart. Replacements Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastian may have their own charm, but the loss of Kristen is definitely telling. 

It now comes out that Ravenna (Theron) in Snow White had a sister named Freya (Emily Blunt), as well as a brother whose existence wasn’t mentioned in the first film. So in an extensive prequel portion, we see the originally gentle Freya, yet to win her spurs as an evil sorceress, falling in love with a nobleman (Robert Wilfort), who prefers to burn their progeny rather than suffer the fate of a blissful marriage to the evil queen’s sister. That happens to become the trigger for Freya’s freaky ice-generating powers and gives her enough reasons to abolish the very notion of love from young vulnerable hearts. 

In having banished herself to a northern Artic wilderness, she is seen busy training young child abductees to acquire skills commiserate with her expansionist ideology.  But Scots -accented Eric (Conrad Khan, later Hemsworth) and Sara (Niamh Walter to Jessica Chastain) are exceptions that pay the price for an illegal love. Seven years later, the two find each other again but their coming together is riddled by past betrayals. 

The dwarves do their best to lighten things up, but their presence adds to the overall confusion brought on by Snow White’s presence as a married adult worried about the darkness overhanging her castle. The 2012 Rupert Sanders vision had a deeper, darker and denser outlay. This one is glitzier, fancier, slicker and much more accessible. No one foresaw the possible retreat into a dramatically diabolic past for the much-loved fairytale romance!