I went into this movie thinking it would be a game of "Spot the Plot Holes." It actually wasn't, which was kind of strange... There were a ton of scenes that seemed lifted from Miyazaki films (The Forest Spirit is directly from Princess Mononoke, and when Ravenna reforms after giving the apple to Snow White, her reconstituted human/bird form was kind of reminiscent of Howl's bird-like form in Howl's Moving Castle), but the story was pretty solid, plot hole-wise. The story was simple and kind of required a working knowledge of fairy tale logic, but other than that, it was fairly coherent.
The only really big problem I had with the whole movie was that they made the duke's son an archer, but all his fight scenes are with enemies that are up close. Bows are not melee weapons. Archers are basically the medieval version of snipers. It didn't really make sense for William to fight with a bow and arrow if all the battles he was engaged in meant he was on the front line. All I can figure is that they were trying to hint at the fact that William was less manly than the huntsman via choice of weapon (See trope: "Guys Smash, Girls Shoot" for further evidence).
The bottom line: it was okay (just okay), but I kind of just ended up wanting to watch Willow when I got home. Chris Hemsworth is also a total fox, if you're into that kind of thing, but his attitude was way reminiscent of Madmartigan, and for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling that the huntsman's character should have been older. The movie wasn't really dark enough, either. I was expecting Pan's Labyrinth levels of darkness, but it just didn't ever quite go there. That left me wondering who this movie was for. It clearly wasn't for children, but it wasn't quite for adults, either. Overall, the movie looks like a hodge-podge of other movies and doesn't really have much of an identity of its own except for Ravenna's evil forces. And why did I walk out of that theater knowing every single character's name (even an off-screen character who is dead by the time we're introduced to adult Snow White), but I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HUNTSMAN'S NAME IS? (Seriously, the guy is credited as "The Hunstman" in the credits. WTF...)
Not bad, but not great
I went into this movie thinking it would be a game of "Spot the Plot Holes." It actually wasn't, which was kind of strange... There were a ton of scenes that seemed lifted from Miyazaki films (The Forest Spirit is directly from Princess Mononoke, and when Ravenna reforms after giving the apple to Snow White, her reconstituted human/bird form was kind of reminiscent of Howl's bird-like form in Howl's Moving Castle), but the story was pretty solid, plot hole-wise. The story was simple and kind of required a working knowledge of fairy tale logic, but other than that, it was fairly coherent.
The only really big problem I had with the whole movie was that they made the duke's son an archer, but all his fight scenes are with enemies that are up close. Bows are not melee weapons. Archers are basically the medieval version of snipers. It didn't really make sense for William to fight with a bow and arrow if all the battles he was engaged in meant he was on the front line. All I can figure is that they were trying to hint at the fact that William was less manly than the huntsman via choice of weapon (See trope: "Guys Smash, Girls Shoot" for further evidence).
The bottom line: it was okay (just okay), but I kind of just ended up wanting to watch Willow when I got home. Chris Hemsworth is also a total fox, if you're into that kind of thing, but his attitude was way reminiscent of Madmartigan, and for some reason I couldn't shake the feeling that the huntsman's character should have been older. The movie wasn't really dark enough, either. I was expecting Pan's Labyrinth levels of darkness, but it just didn't ever quite go there. That left me wondering who this movie was for. It clearly wasn't for children, but it wasn't quite for adults, either. Overall, the movie looks like a hodge-podge of other movies and doesn't really have much of an identity of its own except for Ravenna's evil forces. And why did I walk out of that theater knowing every single character's name (even an off-screen character who is dead by the time we're introduced to adult Snow White), but I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HUNTSMAN'S NAME IS? (Seriously, the guy is credited as "The Hunstman" in the credits. WTF...)