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The Huntsman: Winter's War has been called an unnecessary sequel to the fairy tale re-imagining Snow White and The Huntsman (2012), which was a modest success. It may be unnecessary, but as a steadfast lover of fantasy and swords and sorcery films, I must steadfastly protect it like the Citadel Guards of Gondor.
The original film didn't suck. It starred Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman in the same year that Stewart wrapped the Twilight saga and Hemsworth did the first Avengers movie. Charlize Theron embodied the spectacularly stylish evil queen and Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Ray Winstone and Toby Jones rounded out the cast as dwarves. With that stellar roster, beautiful art direction and a surprisingly dark tone, the first film was surprisingly adept live action fantasy.
This sequel functions as both a prequel and sequel to the first film, and it actually does a competent job of completely leaving out Snow White. That makes it feel trite at first, and for some a waste of time.
The thing is, Kristen Stewart as Snow White was the worst thing about the first film. She functioned almost solely as a lightly-emoting macguffin with too much screen time. Snow White's absence is more than made up for by a very game Jessica Chastain as The Huntsman's feisty partner, who is a lot of fun as a badass warrior and more than a match for Hemsworth. Hemsworth does Hemsworth well as the overly-cocky and macho title character and Emily Blunt as the villainous Ice Queen Freya plays all-powerful but damaged.
The first act functions as a prequel, taking place before the events in the first film and setting up the huntsman's back story. It basically sets up semi-believable character motivation before the film jumps forward to a time years after the original film. The huntsman forms an unlikely alliance of characters who are all after the Magic Mirror before Queen Freya can get her hands on it.
Huntsman's tone bounces between action, drama, comedy and romance like a classic Spielberg adventure flick. That's not to say this film is anywhere near that quality. It's dopey and an obvious rip-off of Frodo's company in Lord of the Rings. The macguffin in this film is the Magic Mirror, an obvious stand in for "The One Ring." Don't think too hard about it. You might start questioning the power of a magic mirror that only tells you how hot Charlize Theron is to conquer anything more than the obvious.
Even though this story is a new creation, the writers create a classic fairytale that you could imagine having been told as a child. Especially with the storybook, tragic love stories behind nearly every character. The characters might not be deep, but they do excellent banter. And while the costumes of the first film were more stylish, Huntsman has better world-building, like Queen Freya's frozen castle and the horned goblins so obsessed with gold they decorate themselves in it.
The Huntsman: Winter's War is far from great cinema, but compared to similar recent genre entries, like The Last Witch Hunter, 47 Ronin and Seventh Son, it's practically a masterpiece.
Like the cult classic Willow, a LOTR rip-off from 1988, Huntsman wears it's influences a little too obviously but tries so endearingly hard to win you over. It's a light amusement and worthy Hollywood popcorn flick, and if I was 13 years old, it might be my favorite film.
Willamette Week