For years, Disney’s live-action Snow White remake has weathered a relentless storm of controversy—from backlash over casting a Latina actress as the “white as snow” princess, to leaked photos of the reimagined human dwarfs, to the leading lady’s divisive jabs at the “dated” original Disney classic. It seemed that no matter Disney’s efforts, the film stumbled into one PR disaster after another. Endless reshoots and a ballooning budget later, one question to the Magic Mirror looms: does the final film rival the 1937 classic, or is it simply a dumpster fire of epic proportions? Which Snow White is the fairest one of all?
Snow White follows Snow White (Rachel Zegler), a princess not named for her complexion but rather for surviving who being born during a ferocious blizzard. She’s reared to lead the kingdom into a collectivist utopia, but when her mother dies, her father (Hadley Fraser) quickly remarries and marches off to battle a threat at the kingdom’s southern border, never to return. His new wife—the cunning Evil Queen (Gal Gadot)—reveals herself as a sorceress who enchanted the King with her powers and beauty and promptly usurps the throne, banishing Snow White as a scullery maid. The once prosperous kingdoms crumbles into disarray and poverty due to taxation and forced conscription. But the vain queen fears that one day, Snow White’s beauty will surpass her own, so she consults her magic mirror, which continually affirms that the Queen is indeed the fairest of all.
One day, a bandit, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), raids the palace kitchen. Snow White confronts him, insisting that stealing is not right. Unaware of her true identity, he lectures her to steal as much as she can for herself. Later, he’s captured and sentenced to freeze to death while shackled to the castle gates. He’s shocked when Snow White not only reveals herself as the long-lost princess, but also frees him, giving him a parting piece of bread for the road.
Her defiance shocks the Evil Queen, who again asks the mirror, “Who is the fairest of them all?” This time, however, it bestows the honor on Snow White—not for beauty, but for her pure heart and sense of moral justice. Infuriated, the Evil Queen dispatches her Huntsman (Ansu Kabia) to take Snow White to the royal orchard under the guise of apple picking, then kill her, bringing her heart back in a box. He chickens out, revealing the true plan to Snow White, and tells her to flee. Deep in the woods, she finds refuge in a cottage, where she meets seven mining dwarfs and later reunites with Jonathan and his ragtag gang of bandits.
You can’t talk about 2025’s Snow White without discussing the polarizing Rachel Zegler, so let’s dive in. Zegler’s talent as a singer and actress is undeniable; however, her Broadway flair doesn’t translate to the big screen, particularly for this version of Snow White. While the filmmakers deviated from Snow White’s original wholesome depiction—making her more vocal and aggressive—while still insisting that she embodies purity, fairness, and goodness, winning over everyone she meets. Zegler, however, struggles convincingly exhibit these characteristics as her performance lacks warmth and sweetness. She may have been suited for the film’s earlier, edgier draft, but after the story morphed, she couldn’t bridge the gap.
Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen is a mixed bag, delivering a bipolar performance that makes it hard to take her (or the movie) seriously. One moment she’s icy serious and the next she’s chewing the scenery. Her villain song—”All Is Fair”—is so campy and Broadway-like that it drew snickers from the audience. All that was missing was a chorus line of royal guards with top hats and canes.
Boasting seven new songs from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul—the songwriting duo behind Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman, and Jasmine’s “Speechless” from 2019’s Aladdin—the film attempts to be a Wicked-style musical with its extravagant dance numbers. Yet the songs feel like generic mid-2010s Broadway numbers and contrast poorly, feeling out of place when classics like “Whistle While You Work”, “Heigh Ho”, and “The Silly Song” start playing. There’s no cohesion between the old songs and new because the oldies were never meant to be there in the first place.
Visually, the film is a chaotic mess, with a color palette that jumps from drab to garish depending on the scene. Most scenes in the enchanted forest and dwarfs’ cottage suffer from bizarre, sickly color grading as if you’re like looking through urine-tinted lenses. Snow White’s iconic pale yellow and royal blue gown, while appropriately saturated for animation, becomes a loud yellow-aqua eyesore, feeling like a cheap design that you could find at your local Spirit Halloween. It’s odd this cartoonish output is from famed costume designer, Sandy Powell, known for her beautiful costuming in Cinderella, and that she didn’t opt for a more realistic, toned-down version of the iconic dress.
The dwarfs’ costumes—bright, solid blocks of color—fare no better, but their most egregious problem lies in their CGI design. The CGI dwarfs (added in last minute, which delayed the film for over a year) are the most uncanny valley, unintentionally frightening creatures imaginable. With their oversized heads and bulbous noses, they are unappealing, breaking one of the 12 Principles of Animation championed by two of the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs animators. The only character who stands out is Dopey, whose character arc replaces Grumpy’s from the original, but he simply looks like the kid from The Polar Express, which was made over 20 years ago when motion-capture technology was still in its infancy. Despite this, it’s clear his animators put a lot of time into capturing his sweet, cute, childlike essence.
On the plus side, the Evil Queen’s dresses and capes are rich and gaudy, dripping in rich blacks and purples. Each new outfit is encrusted with more jewels, showing her increase in vanity and power. While it might have been better stylistic choice to swap the sequins for velvet, her clothing still feels realistic for the vain Queen. On the other hand, Snow White’s peasant’s clothes, as well as those of Jonathan and the bandits, are comically absurd, with a patchwork of patterns and textures. Jonathan even sports a medieval hoodie, evoking a poor-man’s Robin Hood, which is fitting because his character’s bandit nature is nothing but surface-level, void of any higher virtue or altruism.
It’s clear from Rachel Zegler’s 2022 D23 comments that Snow White was never meant to have a love story. But thanks to the magic of reshoots, we do indeed get a love story in the end—a tacked-on romance that comes out of nowhere with no chemistry between the two leads. Their love song resembles Tangled’s “I See the Light,” complete with twinkling fireflies surrounding them. It’s the classic enemies-to-lovers trope, where she doesn’t respect him at first, he mocks her through song (“Princess Problems), and then suddenly, after he takes an arrow to the chest for her, she has have a change of heart and falls head over heels for the guy. That’s all it takes; they’re in love. Now time to push him to the sidelines until he’s needed again for true love’s first kiss to wake her from the poison apple’s spell.
The biggest flaw of Snow White lies in its shoddy fusion of two clashing visions. One is a Disney’s inital pitch, a progressive movie with socialist undertones, while the other scrambles to play the hits from the 1937 original in a desperate pivot after the backlash. As a result, the movie is a discombobulated mess that attempts to straddle both boats, but is unable to stay afloat. It’s unfortunate because great remakes take inspiration from the original film and forge something new, rather than parroting the past. That seemed to be the original intention with Snow White before Disney lost its spine. Instead of sticking to its guns, it folded (repeatedly), shoving in uncanny-valley CGI dwarfs and a tacked-on romance that are at odds with the narrative, which ends up taking a back seat.
All this comes down to the fact that Disney never really wanted to make a Snow White film because it neither understands nor respects the original. In Disney’s mind, the princess was weak, the themes were “outdated”, and modern audiences wanted more and deserved better. It’s clear the studio wanted to make a new and exciting fairy tale, where a progressive, girl-boss princess independently takes on the injustice of her time while simultaneously belting out modern power ballads. But Disney wasn’t comfortable releasing this bold vision as an original film, so instead it took the skin suit of Snow White as a covert guise, butchering the artistry, themes, and legacy of the original along the way. If audiences complain or the film bombs, Disney can blame Snow White as the culprit, instead of looking at the mirror to see where the rot really lies.
Disney’s Snow White is a Frankenstein of a film that is pulled in too many directions—visually, musically, and narratively. There are hints at what could have been a different and potentially interesting remake that was a true departure from the original, but the film is ultimately poisoned by not sticking to that vision.
★½
Snow White hits theaters on March 21, 2025.
