Title – Snow White (2025)
Director – Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer)
Cast – Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap
Plot – The fairest princess of them all Snow White (Zegler) must team up with a group of reclusive dwarves and rebel leader Jonathan (Burnap) to help stop the tyrannical reign of her step mother the Evil Queen (Gadot).
“This could be so much fun!”
Review by Eddie on 26/03/2025
Should I feel sorry for a multi-million dollar global behemoth that has monopolised most of Hollywood and the beloved IP of brands many of us know and love?
Look the answer is probably not but at this moment in time I almost (like precariously close to) do feel sorry for Disney and all involved in the historical failure and financial flop that is the doomed to fail Snow White “live action” remake, a film that’s road to release has been one filled with controversy, rumours and innuendo and a multitude of poor decision making that has seen it become one of the most disastrous Disney investments in their long and storied history.
At the time of writing Snow White is fresh off an atrocious opening weekend at the global box office that saw figures of under $100 million come in off a budget that has been estimated to be close to $300 million, putting the final nail into the coffin of a film that would need to make close to $600 million globally to be even considered one that was breaking even.
While this is a horror story unto itself, it’s nothing compared with Snow White’s mostly seething or lacklustre critical reviews and an even more abnormally hate filled audience reception that has seen this reimagining rating at under a 2 star rating on movie bible website IMBD, ranking lower than well-known and disdained films such as Battlefield Earth, Son of the Mask and Gigli.
The type of film you’d expect an AI system to spurt out if you were to ask it to create the most stereotypical and paint by numbers Disney exercise possible in a feature length product, there’s countless films across time that I would personally say are far worse and harder to bare than this loveless and generic offering but that’s not much of a complement to a film that with the talent, money and opportunity involved could’ve and perhaps should’ve been on a similar wavelength to breakout fanciful musical features such as Wicked.
Directed by Marc Webb who has dropped off significantly over time after his breakout 500 Days of Summer suggested we were watching a director of not emerge out of left field, Snow White is the exact type of studio designed corporate fodder that has been infesting big Hollywood productions across the last decade and gives its cast and audience very little chance to enjoy anything that feels unique or designed with love and care.
There’s been much made of the main leads in Snow White with both Rachel Zegler’s turn as Snow White and Gal Gadot’s turn as the Evil Queen attracting their own forms of controversies and critically ruthless opinions/sentiments and its not unsurprising that the films listless script and amateurish direction leaves them with little too work with in a film that doesn’t ever appear to be comfortable with who it’s aiming its intentions at.
Is Snow White a film for youngsters, the young at heart or the TikTok generation that latched itself onto Wicked and Mufasa in recent times?
It’s honestly hard to know, it’s a film that just simply is.
At days end it’s hard to understand what type of grand proposition Disney saw in this modern take on one of their most adored and well-liked cinematic properties. There’s so little to remember here, even the plethora of new songs by hit Broadway and Hollywood songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul mostly fall flat, that it’s hard to understand what anyone was supposed to get excited about.
The insane amount of hatred directed at this film (especially from the scores of people who haven’t and never will see the film) is entirely undeserved and over the top but that doesn’t excuse Snow White from doing so little and doing so much so poorly, culminating in a film that’s devoid of any heart, soul or reason to care.
Final Say –
A film that will go down in the cinematic history books as one of the great mistakes and misguided undertakings, Snow White is a bland and unimaginative new take on a grand old story that has been unduly put to the sword in a way that has gotten well and truly out of hand.
1 1/2 fresh apple pies out of 5
Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys) 
Trying to not disregard the genuine workers who have to try to bring these things to fruition, why are Disney so obsessed with trying to destroy their own legacy with things like this? It’s so weird.
It’s a shame there would have been so many that put in the hard yards on this one and it’s ended up being the end product it is.
I really don’t know how Disney got this one so wrong.
E
I’m not opposed to the idea, but I’ve heard rumblings about it a while back and the trailer didn’t fill me with much confidence. After lackluster experiences had with Beauty and The Beast I’m reluctant to give another one a try. Based n trailers they all look visually great and actors are mostly fine but the execution bothers me to no end.
I did enjoy Maleficent (not a remake) and I loved Cruella (another inspired by the original animated movie) and Alice in Wonderland was ok thanks to Burton.
I don’t know… do you recommend one or two from the direct animated adaptations?
I’ve struggled with most of them to be honest mate, most of them are tolerable and also look fantastic from a sense of production values etc but this one was a real low for Disney.
It just “happens” it’s such a generic and unloved feeling film, it appears as though no one invested their heart and soul into it it was merely just a job.
I’m sure many young people will still like it but there’s no way anyone will ever fall in love with it.
E
The funny thing about the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is that it’s not about romance at all. The Prince is barely a character. He’s just there to give the film the happy ending the Production Code demanded.
The original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a Depression era film about a downwardly mobile “lady” escaping the violent, corrupt ruling class (the Wicked Queen) into nature and into solidarity with the working class.
Nature: Birds, squirrels, rabbits, they’re all good, benign.
The Working Class: The Seven Dwarfs. They are blue collar workers. She’s a middle class lady who teaches them proper manners. They build a little cross class community together.
Rachel Zegler is being made the scapegoat for Disney, for the corporate schlock the ruling class passes off as liberation for women. The people attacking her are “punching down” instead of attacking the real enemy.
Thing I just realized about this movie and the backlash.
Big budget Hollywood movies tend to have “something for everybody.” Leftists like Lord of the Rings. White Supremacists like Lord of the Rings. Same with Star Wars. Hippies loved it. Ronald Reagan loved it.
But this reboot of Snow White has given us something new.
A backlash for everyone.
Conservatives and Zionists love the backlash against Rachel Zegler.
Leftists love the backlash against Gal Gadot.
The hate train against this one is unlike anything I’ve ever seen!
E
The Zionist lobby could have easily canceled Rachel Zegler without the backlash.
This is bottom up. I think this type of backlash has been brewing ever since the botched marketing campaign around Lady Ghostbusters.
Remember when you were a bad person, a sexist, if you didn’t go to see it?
I have a crackpot theory about why it’s gotten so intense. Millennials are starting to realizing they’re never going to create anything original like the Boomers did. They’re in their 30s and 40s now and bitter about the way they settled for reboots and nostalgia, crackpot right wing politics or smarmy liberal politics instead of building on the promising start they made with Occupy Wall Street.
Millennials swallowed neoliberal identity politics whole and then instead of just getting past it and creating something new, they swallowed the right wing backlash whole.
It’s the boomerang from Obama to Trump and from Trump to Obama.
People in their 30s and 40s are having a bitter midlife crisis and taking it out on a Disney movie. They are rebelling against the symbols of the corporatocracy instead of the corporatocracy themselves.
I think you have three different levels of marketing.
1.) Disney who want to market movies
2.) Social media influencers who want to market their brand
3.) Politicians who want to market the cultural backlash
Disney was originally just giving people what they wanted. Remember “Oscars so White” and all of the other pre-Musk Twitter hashtags.
Remember what essentially amounted to “identity over aesthetics,” how representation mattered more than entertainment.
Disney gave the social media mobs what they wanted.
But now the social media mobs have decided “that’s not what we wanted at all.”
I Think Rachel Zegler Is Definitely Lea Michele 2.0
I Think Sherry Lansing should be replaced Bob Iger as Disney’s CEO
I Think Ella Hunt would bet a better choice as Snow White In Snow White (2025 film) then Rachel Zegler
I Think Rachel Zegler as Snow White In a live-action adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwar Is the Worst Casting Of all time
I Think Angelina Jordan would bet a better choice as Snow White In Snow White (2025 film) then Rachel Zegler
Good review…ugh! This movie! I really didn’t much hope for this movie, but what was presented certainly wasn’t anything great. Poorly directed, terribly conceived, and forgettable musicals, bland characters, and questionable decisions are all compiled into this movie’s disappointing factor. A true Disney princess problem if there ever was one.
An all-round misfire this one mate. Some people went a little too far in the hate campaign but it was a very sad example of wasting huge amounts of money on a film no one wanted.
E
Pingback: The Best & Worst Films of 2025 | Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)·