Snow White (2025) – Rotting Apple

Released: 20th March
Seen: 26th June

It’s hard to describe how much the world changed on December 21^st, 1937, when Walt Disney premiered his feature-length animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Up to that point, no one thought it was possible; movies were still a young medium at that point, but animated cartoons were meant to just be small things put at the front of the proper movie, never the actual main event. Disney changed all that and created an entire genre of cinema. The original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an undeniable classic, even without the historical relevance that comes with being the first of its kind; it’s also just a fantastic film with songs that we still hum to this day and some of the most iconic characters in the animated medium. It’s one of those retellings that redefined the original story. When you think of the story of Snow White there’s a good chance you think of the Disney version, you almost certainly revert to the names Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful, Happy, Sleepy and Dopey for the dwarfs. It’s a piece of cinematic history that we should respect… and by “We” I mean “Disney” because based on what they did with the 2025 remake, I don’t think they respect their own history at all.

I really don’t even need to do the plot synopsis for this one because you know it all but for the sake of completionism, Snow White (Rachel Zegler) loses both her parents in a systematic way that allows her evil stepmother (Gal Gadot) to become the Evil Queen. The queen’s obsession with being the fairest means Snow White has to fuck off forever, she gets chased into the woods where she meets the seven dwarfs and then, even later, meets Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) and his seven thieves who help her regain the confidence she needs to confront the evil queen. There’s the poison apple, a big confrontation, a couple of classic songs and the modern Pasek and Paul nonsense we’re apparently never going to be rid of; it’s Snow White, so you know most of the drill thanks to cultural osmosis.

It’s weird to think that an adaptation of Snow White might be the most controversial movie of the year, but it kind of is. Some of the reasons make sense and some don’t but I can’t think of a film that’s sparked more exhausting public discussion than this movie which is wild because it’s not interesting enough to deserve that much attention. It’s another Disney remake where all the charm and originality has been sucked out and replaced with standard modern corporate bullshit that no one actually likes. I’m sorry but if you tell me you prefer any of these Disney remakes in comparison to the original animated versions, I’m going to call you a liar because they never really offer anything that’s an improvement on the original and this movie is no exception. Everything you see in this movie was done so much better in the 1937 version, from the music to the visuals to the performances… OK, most of the performances.

The one undeniable bright spark in this film is Rachel Zegler, who really is just one of the best musical theatre performers of this generation. Now she’s somehow become a lightning rod because apparently everyone thinks she hates the original (a thing she never said, she just pointed out the 1937 film has some ideas that didn’t age that well… shocker, a 20-something person doesn’t line their politics up with a film from 80 years ago) or because she’s not white as a piece of paper… like I said, some of the reasons people hate this movie don’t make sense, a lot of the stuff around Zegler is among that. Anyway, Zegler is fucking perfect in every single second she has that camera on her. She sings like a goddamn angel and puts her all into every single musical number. She’s talented enough to make me like a Pasek and Paul song and I basically recoil in terror when I hear those two are involved in a musical nowadays. She’s that good. Her voice is powerful, able to kill high notes like they were nothing and her pure earnestness alone has you rooting for her. She’s the one great thing this film has going for it.

I’m sad to report that Gal Gadot has not gotten much better as a performer, turns out she was just lucky to be cast in roles where her specific style of performance worked but god damn does this role expose her flaws. She’s not convincingly evil, not over the top enough to be fun (though god damn does she try), her singing is just off puttingly pitchy at times and you can hear them trying to drag it back to a decent note. It’s just not a fun villain performance, and this is the Evil Queen! This is a role you should be able to devour, a role meant for hamming it up and having fun with it, but Gal’s just got nothing. There are literally people strolling around Disneyland right now who can show you what a great Evil Queen should look like and if Gal was even half as good as that it might work, but she’s not. She’s not fun, she’s not intimidating, she’s just there because they needed a big name for the poster and apparently this was the best option they came up with.

The Dwarfs don’t really fare much better, they’re mostly just forgettable and half of them might as well not appear in the film. They just seem like they’re there out of obligation (note that they dropped the “and the seven dwarfs” part from the title?); the film’s more interested in its new creations of the seven thieves than it is with the Dwarfs. Then there’s just the changes they make to those dwarfs, one particular choice regarding Dopey had me actually angry as it was a change made for no reason other than to try and be modern and cool. Another big change is the iconic Heigh Ho which has clearly had a rewrite and it does nothing to improve the film. The Dwarfs are also now given magical powers of some sort that they use to help them in the mine… these magical powers never come up again after the Heigh Ho song introduces them because why would they? Why would we introduce things that matter? Like a lot of things in this film, it’s a change made to try to be different from the original without improving on it.

There’s a lot of moments where they do try and present things a little differently than the 1937 film did, which can be good since it means that this isn’t just a shitty carbon copy of the original… except none of the changes matter or do anything to fundamentally change the film in a positive way. The most they do is try to make Snow White a little more badass, and hey I’m all for giving Snow White more agency and some of the ending actually works well in that area but most of it just feels like they’re trying too hard to make her a badass and it’s awkward as hell. It’s kind of the same problem that they ran into regarding Belle from Beauty and the Beast and trying to make her a more assertive character, in that they do it badly enough that it hurts the character in the long run. 

Snow White is another in the endless list of bad Disney remakes that shows that the studio doesn’t care about its history and only cares about making a profit. The fact that this bombed is a hopeful thing, hopefully it’s going to make them realise that the audience is tired of these substandard remakes and that we want the Disney from the Golden Age back. They’ve stopped taking bold chances, the original 1937 film was such a bold idea that it nearly destroyed the company… This version is such a bland, basic idea that it will be forgotten within a few months. The original has stuck in our memories for almost 90 years, it will probably do so for 90 more and frankly, I’d rather have that version of Snow White than whatever the hell they just spat out this year.