Snow White review: one more boring, mediocre live-action Disney retread

<br>Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG (violence, some peril, thematic elements and brief rude humor).In theaters.Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the laziest of them all?That’d be Disney, the creativity-starved studio that has seemingly lost all ability or inclination to make new hits and would rather rifle through its back catalog instead.This time, the House of Mouse has gone all the way back — to its first full-length feature film, 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” The result? Heigh-ho-hum. The timeless classic, a groundbreaking achievement for animation, has been turned into another pointless and awkward live-action automaton that vanishes from your mind the second it’s over.Modernizing the lovably retro “Snow White” was a dopey idea to begin with, and, while the execution isn’t horrible, the formulaic update is sleepy.

I can’t wait for all the emails calling me grumpy.I’ll whistle while I work!  The original was charming as a prince, with a wholesome and relatively modest story that’s mostly household chores and dancing.For 2025, director Marc Webb and writer Erin Cressida Wilson have puffed it up into Disney’s usual contemporary romance featuring a dusting of action and a jab of empowerment. In this version, the evil queen (Gal Gadot) not only torments her fairest-of-em-all stepdaughter (Rachel Zegler) she so envies, but is an oppressive monarch who’s forced all of her male subjects to become soldiers.The formerly lovely village was Technicolor when Snow’s beloved parents were alive, but ever since the mean queen rolled in, it’s grayscale — like “Pleasantville.”So, Snow White can’t just ride off into the sunset with her man at the end anymore.

She needs to wake up and save the kingdom from the vain witch.Zegler adds a hint of edge to sweet Snow, and has a nice pop voice that’s different from what we heard in “West Side Story.” I certainly prefer her as a Disney princess than a Shakespeare...