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Snow White Movie Review

Snow White is a 2025 musical fantasy film directed by Marc Webb and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. It’s a perfectly passable, though disposable remake that had no reason to exist.

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“You’re called Happy ’cause you’re happy,

and I’m called Grumpy because I’m… misunderstood“

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A princess joins forces with seven dwarfs and a group of rebels to liberate her kingdom from her cruel stepmother the Evil Queen. First off, this film went through so many controversies during its production and release cycle. Those controversies range from reasonable (the look of the dwarfs, the race-bending of the main character and the actress’s disregard of the original film) to unreasonable – the political stances of the two actresses should not influence your view of the film that they star in.

My main problem with the overall film is its failure to justify its own existence. They changed so many aspects of the original film that they strayed too far away from the story. On the other hand, many other famous sequences were pretty much lifted from the first film in their entirety. This led to this awkward mix of faithful and reimagined that didn’t really work. This type of story should be more romantic and less feminist, which they of course failed to realize.

Rachel Zegler should have never been cast in this role due to the obvious reason of her skin not being white. They went around that issue by creating this ridiculous background story of why she would be called Snow White when she isn’t white. It’s all ludicrous and ultimately needless. With that being said, Zegler was easily the standout performer in this cast. She actually can sing unlike Gadot and she belted out all of her numbers with ease. She’s charming, likable and sweet in the role and I ultimately did manage to warm up to her version of the character.

But Gal Gadot herself was truly horrendous. She should be attacked for her acting skills and not her political stances no matter how maligned they are. I did like the idea of the two actresses being so vastly different in their heights. That worked in their favor. But other than her look (the costumes and jewelry were top-notch), Gadot simply couldn’t perform properly. She was perfectly cast in ‘Wonder Woman’ as a fish out of water type character to mask her lack of acting skills, but here this over-the-top villain role demanded a really strong actress to pull it off. Couple her horrible line delivery with her terrible singing and you’ve got one of the worst performances in recent memory. She was truly horrendous.

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On the positive side of things we have Andrew Burnap. This is the first role for this Broadway performer and he was so well cast in the enlarged role of the love interest. He is not a prince here, but a rebel. This was a fine change for me personally and I really liked his character, though I found him to be too similar to Flynn Rider. The romance was solid too. The Huntsman also has a bigger role and I also liked him, but I wished that those bandits were cut from the film as they had no purpose whatsoever.

Let’s talk about those damn dwarfs. I’d failed to mention above, so I’d just say it here – Peter Dinklage should be ashamed for taking the jobs away from real dwarf actors. That is by far the biggest thing to me that hurt the film overall. The CGI done on the dwarfs was atrocious and they somehow looked both painfully realistic and ridiculously cartoony. None of them looked cute. Their roles were also reduced this time around and I did not get the sense that they loved Snow White as much as they did in the original. How they treated Dopey was horrible and that entire origin story for him made sense, but was entirely unnecessary to include.

This Snow White doesn’t look as good as the original, there is no doubt about it. That film was a work of art while this one is a CGI mess. The animals looked overly big in eyes and bodies while the forest looked too bright and shiny. I liked how the witch looked, but everything else did not appeal to me. The house was solidly detailed and cozy and the mines also looked pretty good, but the castle was overly grandiose and I failed to connect with the socialist utopia narrative that was clearly lifted from the movie ‘Wish’.

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The soundtrack is fine for what it is. Someday My Prince Will Come and I’m Wishing were missing here, which was a real shame, but at least the new renditions of Heigh-Ho and Whistle While You Work were both competent and a lot of fun. Zegler’s singing is excellent and those numbers were suitably energetic and charming. I did not like any of the new songs that Pasek and Paul composed with the exception of Waiting on a Wish, which is a gorgeously song and emotionally charged number, but the other ones were all pedestrian and they sounded the same as in every other modern Disney film. The beginning and the ending did not work for me as they changed the story way too much and the dialogue was cringe-worthy, but at the least the middle section was suitably fun and charming.