Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just want to start off by saying that I wanted to like this movie. I really did. However, this film is depressingly skin deep. The good. The camerawork is absolutely stunning, the special effects as well. Your eyes tell you that there is a marvelous film before you, but that is as far as it goes. I have to say, before I start the bashing, that Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth try their absolute hardest making something out of the lines that they are given. Their performances were touching (Theron more so than the rest) and they at least gave some substance to it. Hemsworth carried most of the film when Theron wasn't in the picture. If it were just a story between the two of them, even with the horrible lines that they were given, it would have been at least a four star film. Now for the bad, and when I say bad, I mean terrible. I never had much of an opinion about Kristen Stewart before this movie. I steadfastly stayed away from Twilight so I thought I had a pretty clean slate to judge going into this. Stewart, who plays Snow White, has been locked in a tower for years only to escape right before the Queen (Theron), who killed her father the King, kills her and takes her heart. Needless to say, after somehow finding this out in a slightly perverted scene, Snow White runs away. Then she runs away again after she loses her magic pony (actually, she abandons him). Then the Huntsman joins in and he runs away with her too. At some point there's a Troll for all of 30 seconds, then scarred women for another minute or so. At about the 1 hour mark we finally meet the dwarves. Throughout all of this, we maybe get 10 mumbled lines from Stewart. I can't say that this is entirely her fault. It is the writing that is terrible. But then we get to the acting. I swear, every single time Hemsworth spoke to Stewart you could see the pleading in his eyes. It's as if he were trying to say, "Please, give me some sort of emotion to go on!!" Alas, Stewart just stares back at him and breathes. Literally. This is the Snow White we get. A breathing, slightly constipated looking girl who squints off into the distance looking slightly befuddled. You can almost tell that the director is obsessed with Stewart from all of the closeups you get of her. I mean after about the 20th time I get it. She's beautiful. Now show me something MORE. I mean, Snow White, you were LOCKED AWAY in a TOWER for YEARS after witnessing the DEATH of your FATHER and the FALL of your KINGDOM. Any human being would have had some sort of melt down, but all we get is Stewart, looking beautiful. Hasn't anyone told these people that looks can only get you so far? It was the wooden lead that sealed it for me. No matter how good the surrounding cast, you need a great lead to carry such a heavy weight of a film. Oh, and let's not forget to mention the patch work editing and dead dialogue that made it even worse. I was literally writhing in pain and hitting my forehead with my fist by the time it ended. Truly, it was pure agony to sit through for anyone who likes backstory and acting. If you want to watch a visually stunning film, this is the movie for you. Before you go watch it though, I strongly suggest that you just mute out the scenes with Stewart, which is most of the film. After all, wasn't it only visual beauty that the director was trying to portray? The fairest of them all truly is only skin deep.