The Huntsman: Winter’s War cold as ice

By Katherine Monk

If you loved Frozen, you’ll probably hate The Huntsman: Winter’s War. Not that it’s a particularly awful example of the new genre of adult-oriented fairy tale that wanders around in tight leather pants, and wipes blood off some freshly plunged sword.

The problem with this Grimm revision is the way it takes a hatchet to female relationships – something Frozen threatened with the frigid dynamic between princess sisters Elsa and Anna, but finally thawed with a loving connection, proving women don’t always have to be evil bitches and ice queens – at least not in movies aimed at kids.

The grown-up world has always been a little more sinister with the fair sex, and The Huntsman: Winter’s War offers a classic example of every sagging female cliché as it tells the story of Ravenna (Charlize Theron) and Freya (Emily Blunt), princess sisters with some lingering power issues to sort out.

Ravenna is the older sibling and her power is well established thanks to the golden mirror that tells her she’s the fairest of them all, but that whole business with upstart Snow White – which unfolded in the previous movie Snow White and the Huntsman – left Ravenna a shadow of her former self.

Unable to manifest in physical form, Ravenna is now a power contained in the mirror itself – and the mirror has been stolen. In fairy tale terms, it’s like a suitcase nuke going astray, which means some immutable force of goodness must appear to save the day—sooner than later.

Enter The Huntsman–again. Proving more competent with hardware than a Home Depot sales assistant, Chris Hemsworth trades in his giant hammer for a pair of hand-tooled axes as Eric, the Huntsman, part of a Huntsman army created by Ravenna’s little sister Freya – who has now become a queen in her own right.

Once a kind and caring woman capable of love and altruism, Freya’s heart was turned to ice when the man she loved murdered their child. Now cold and angry, Freya steals children, turns them into loyal soldiers, and seizes territory after territory to fill the gaping hole in her hoary soul.

Eric is just one of her many soldiers. Sara (Jessica Chastain) is another, but Eric and Sara have been secretly in love since they were kidnapped as children. They want to be together, but Freya forbids love. She knows it burns and ends in heartbreak, so she separates them.

If you’ve been keeping score, there are three central plotlines: Freya and Ravenna’s sibling dysfunction, Eric and Sara’s star-crossed love, and the mirror of mass destruction. It’s like a church rummage sale of used clothes and mismatched china, things look familiar but feel useless and a little bit shabby despite the high-end visual effects.

First time feature director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan comes from the world of special effects, so the movie’s reliance on spectacle isn’t surprising – but it’s not doing anyone any favors, most notably Nicolas-Troyan.

The young Frenchman had endless human talent at his fingertips. Blunt and Theron could have filled every frame with drama by themselves, but throw in Chastain and Hemsworth, and Nicolas-Troyan was standing knee-deep in analog potential that he sacrifices at the altar of digital.

The movie has so much clutter and gratuitous sparkle that it feels like something from Elvis’s closet: a grand cape outfitted with gold, silver and femme fatales – but serves no purpose whatsoever. It just hangs there.

Sadly, it’s not a very flattering garment. Everyone in this movie looks worse for the wear. Hemsworth looks decidedly ordinary despite the tailored knickers, Chastain feels woefully out of place in the role of latter-day Boudica, and Emily Blunt – who brings far more to the screen than the script dictated – loses her thespian curves to the one-dimensional script that relies on cat-fights and dwarf jokes to keep its audience engaged.

This movie wanted to be a chick-friendly take on franchise action – a superhero movie with Hemsworth in tight pants and strong female characters who “never miss.” It’s a worthy aim, but when the females are reduced to two-dimensions as super bitches or saintly heroines, there’s no chance of hitting the desired target.

@katherinemonk

Above: Emily Blunt as Freya and Charlize Theron as Ravenna in The Huntsman: Winter’s Tale. Photo by Giles Keyte, courtesy of Universal Studios

THE EX-PRESS, April 21, 2016

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