"Snow White and the Huntsman" is a film of conflicting spells. One of them, which approaches pure enchantment, has been woven from dazzling imagery, inspired design and a pair of powerful performances: Charlize Theron as Snow White's persecutor, Queen Ravenna, and Chris Hemsworth as the put-upon heroine's protector, the Huntsman of the title. An evil spell nearly does Snow White in, but it's lifted in the nick of time. The strangest spell afflicts Kristen Stewart; she can't seem to imbue Snow White with anything more than a semblance of feeling. That spell never lifts, but it doesn't make much difference in the end because the forces of good manage to work around it.
This ambitious production was directed by Rupert Sanders, a first-time feature filmmaker who made his reputation with television commercials. He's a whiz at visual storytelling, and he has surrounded himself with such top-notch collaborators as the production designer Dominic Watkins; the cinematographer Greig Fraser and the costume designer Colleen Atwood. (The Gothic look of Ravenna's ravishing gowns is sharpened by Art Deco.) They summon up a sumptuously dark and revisionist kingdom that's closer to "Game of Thrones" than the Brothers Grimm, let alone Walt Disney. Not since "The Lord of the Rings" has landscape been so central to mood. For once the effects are special because they're original: the digital dwarfing of seven full-size, full-throated performers (more about that later); swarms of crows and their visual echoes, shards of black glass into which Ravenna and her cohorts shatter when struck by swords; the queen's rising, after her shattering, from some sort of primordial slime.
The main de-Grimming of the plot concerns the Huntsman, who, in this version, is dispatched to capture Snow White but becomes her ardent protector, and then her tutor in martial arts. (The script was written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini.) To anyone who has seen Mr. Hemsworth's recent work in "The Cabin in the Woods" and "The Avengers," it will come as no surprise that he's a graceful presence as well as a forceful one, and as witty as the circumstances allow. ("So you're back from the dead and instigating the masses," the Huntsman tells Snow White at one point, with a lilt in his voice and a twinkle in his eye. She responds with a wan, puzzled smile.)
The most indelible image of Ravenna is from the back, and of her backâ€"curved and ebony white, with a spine photographed to seem reptilian. From any angle, though, Ms. Theron makes the queen a fearsome creature, not to mention a man-hater of epic ferocity. "Immortality," Ravenna cries lustfully, "immortality forever!" Good for her that she won't settle for the short-term variety; she's as vampiric as any of Ms. Stewart's pals from other precincts. In her time, and in her way, Ravenna is the ultimate consumer of beauty products, sucking the life from those around her to sustain her baleful glow.
As movie villains go, the queen's brother, Finn, is right down there with the worst of them. Played with stylish malevolence by Sam Spruell, he leads a small army that tracks Snow White and the Huntsman through a dead forest (where a terrific chase ends in the ignominy of mud); that lays waste to a peasant village (where consuming fires evoke "Apocalypse Now") and follows them to an enchanted sanctuary, where the mushrooms have tiny Cyclops eyes and little albino fairies flit about, leaving trails of fairy dust. Intense action, high-tech aesthetics and exotic settings are Mr. Sanders's strong suits. The director sets a heart-pounding pace, pausing only for such interludes as Snow White's encounter with seven dwarfs who could not be more distant from their Disney forebears.
The decision to cast the little people as they have been cast was both daring and politically incorrect. Why weren't they played by short-statured actors like Peter Dinklage, who has finally found the celebrity he deserves on "Game of Thrones"? Because, one suspects, the prospect of digitizing Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Eddie Marsan and other lesser-known but equally formidable Brits was just too delicious to resist. The decision pays off, though not as fully as it might have. For all their oddity, and for all the sweetness of Snow White's slow dance with one of their number, these dwarfs don't measure up to their potential because the script doesn't bother to differentiate their personalities.
They're not the only ones who serve more as symbols than individuals; that's how the director, steeped in the bold symbolics of TV commercials, seems to see the good and evil of Snow White's world. And that's OK when he's working with Ms. Theron or Mr. Hemsworth; skillful as well as intuitive, these stars provide all the nuance a director could ask for. But Snow White is literally another story, even though, according to Mr. Hoskins's dwarf, "she is life itself." Ms. Stewart's skills haven't caught up with her celebrity, so it's almost painful to watch and listen as she struggles with an English accent and intones her dialogue lifelessly: Not just complex questions, like the one Snow White puts to the Huntsmanâ€""Do you drink to drown your sorrows or your conscience?"â€"but simple lines, like her declaration to the dwarfs: "We mean you no harm."
The heroine is more excitable, though no more eloquent, in her Joan of Arc mode, once she has absorbed the Huntsman's lessons of war and leads her followers into the fray. Then the problem becomes displaying her leaps and lunges to best advantageâ€"the actress aspires to more agility than she achievesâ€"while keeping a lid on her shrill outcries. Still, who's to say that Ms. Stewart won't give the movie exactly what it needsâ€"legs plus a strong sword arm at the box office? Bella redux, she faces the world with adolescent angst and a Twilighted frown, and no one is more entitled than Snow White to be angsty.
'Aeon Flux' (2005)
By now everyone knows that Charlize Theron is a fine actress, and that she's done a number of excellent movies. This one does not aspire to excellence, or anything close to that heady neighborhood. It's a sci-fi thriller based on the animated MTV show, and pretty dreadful, if truth be told. But "Aeon Flux" is Ms. Theron's "Barbarella," the sci-fi oddity that earned Jane Fonda perverse renown, so it's worth a mirthful watch, or at least a streaming-service glance. Karyn Kusama directed a cast that includes Jonny Lee Miller, Frances McDormand and the late Pete Postlethwaite.
'Thor' (2011)
Another film that not only doesn't aspire to excellence, but dodges it at every turn. Chris Hemsworth stars as the young God of Thunder, who struggles against evil forces and his own impetuousness. The movie struggles against all-encompassing ponderousness, and loses. Yet Mr. Hemsworth is a commanding physical presence, and a likable one whenever he's given a chance. In certain scenes he seems to be reaching for the state of comedic grace that Amy Adams attained in "Enchanted." Thor's love interest on Earth is Natalie Portman's astrophysicist, Jane, who talks earnestly about resolving her particle data.
'Into the Wild' (2007)
Kristen Stewart is Tracy Tatro in Sean Penn's fascinating screen version of the Jon Krakauer book of the same name. It's a very small role, but she gets to sing in a trailer park, and gives an agreeably vital performance that could still be predictive of things to come in her career. Emile Hirsch stars as Chris McCandless, a kid from a prosperous family who wants to live the life of an aesthetic voyager, but blunders into it with unexamined survival skills. The cast includes Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook.
â€"Joe MorgensternWrite to Joe Morgenstern at joe.morgenstern@wsj.com
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