The Huntsman: Winter’s War
Director: Cedric Nicholas-Troyan
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt
Three stars
We all know Hollywood loves sequels. And, from The Phantom Menace to Prometheus, it is increasingly embracing prequels. But what about prequel-sequels?
This follow-up to 2012's fairy-tale fantasy Snow White and the Huntsman offers a relatively unusual selling point, folding itself around the original movie like a brightly coloured sweets wrapper.
With Kristen Stewart’s Snow White absent, though not forgotten, this time the story concentrates on Huntsman Eric, again played by Chris Hemsworth. His past is fleshed out, specifically how he became a Huntsman and how he met and lost his first love, Sara (Jessica Chastain), a fellow hunter who is a dab-hand with a bow and arrow.
The plot is neatly packaged, not least as it intertwines Eric’s history with that of Ravenna, Charlize Theron’s evil queen, who he and Snow White defeated in the first movie.
It turns out, Ravenna has a sister, Freya (Emily Blunt), who is grief-stricken over the loss of her child. With her sorrow manifesting as deadly jets of ice, Freya isolates herself in a wintry palace, raising an army of Huntsmen.
“In my kingdom, there is but one law,” she says. “Do not love – it is a sin.”
This proves to be a bit of a problem for Eric and Sara, as they start to fall for each other.
Directed by first-time helmer Cedric Nicholas-Troyan, who worked on the visual effects for the first movie, the main problem with this “pre-sequel” is that it tries to cover too much ground.
With acres of prequel backstory, the sequel aspect of the plot – as Eric is reunited with Sara after seven years apart – rather feels like an afterthought.
Still, compared to its dark, dour predecessor, the film is at least lighter and funnier. Eric and Sara are accompanied by a quartet of squabbling dwarves – played by Nick Frost, returning from the first film, with newcomers, and fellow British actors, Rob Brydon, Sheridan Smith and Alexandra Roach. Their tomfoolery is a blessed relief from all the po-faced hocus-pocus.
Of the main cast, Hemsworth and Chastain are physically dexterous but rather hampered by their distracting Celtic accents.
Blunt invests some genuine emotion in an underwritten character, though the film only really cranks up when Theron’s mad-as-a-bag-of-frogs Ravenna appears.
With Liam Neeson narrating, the film concludes with the nugget that some fairy tales “never truly end”.
Despite a decent, honest effort by the stars and filmmakers, it is probably time to disprove that perceived wisdom, at least in this case. This feels like a pretty good place to close the storybook.
artslife@thenational.ae
