It’s not quite Willy Wonka’s suit , and it should probably belong to the young actor who wore it onscreen, but it’s a good cause, so hey: “Focus Features is donating an original costume from its acclaimed new movie Moonrise Kingdom , directed by Wes Anderson, to Variety the Children’s Charity of New York for Variety New York’s online auction.” Read on for more from Focus’s announcement and the auction site CharityBuzz. First came the specifics from the studio [via press release]: The costume is the Khaki Scouts of North America uniform worn by 12-year-old Sam Shakusky (played by Jared Gilman) in Moonrise Kingdom . After consulting with the director, costume designer Kasia Walicka Maimone and her department created every single element of the uniform, including activity buttons and hand-sewn insignia patches. The gift from Mr. Anderson and the worldwide film company will help Variety New York raise funds to support its work in the tri-state area transforming the lives of children through the arts. And here’s exactly what you’d be bidding on, via CharityBuzz : This includes the Green Scout Shorts with Yellow Piping; Green Scout Shirt w/ Patches, Button, and Yellow Piping, and a Yellow Neckerchief. Terms : In condition as donated. Bidding commenced today and will continue through noon ET on June 13; the current high bidder has opted in at $125. A steal! For now. Good luck! [ CharityBuzz ]
The first trailer for the Tony Gilroy-helmed spy sequel The Bourne Legacy has arrived, and it’s got everything you want: Bone-crunching action, fire extinguisher guns, Rachel Weisz as a hot lady doctor, and Jeremy Renner banging around doing his sensitive-strong mooney-eyed thing (and leaping out of rivers half-naked) as secret agent Aaron Cross. Okay, those are all the things I want from The Bourne Legacy , but the trailer gives us one more essential bit: Explanation as to how and why Renner’s been retconned into Bourne lore at all. Renner’s turn at the Bourne wheel isn’t a conventional sequel or reboot but a universe-expanding parallel storyline that seems to take place simultaneous to the events of the previous Bournes, with Matt Damon ‘s face popping up here and there — via photograph, a la Natalie Portman in The Avengers , or Robin Harris in House Party 2 — as the fugitive spy who upturned the Treadstone apple cart and set the spy world a’scramblin way back in 2002’s The Bourne Identity . So Renner’s Aaron Cross — and the comely agency doctor (Weisz) who patches him up between missions, then goes on the run with him — are freed from the singular mission that Jason Bourne was on. They can flee for their own lives, together. He can use his medically-enhanced super soldier skills to leap from buildings into tight alleyways when she calls his name. So romantic! And, also importantly, Renner’s Cross already seems like a much different man-spy than Bourne was. Damon played the tortured amnesiac thing well, but Cross doesn’t seem to be flailing about in some existential crisis; he knows what he is. That confident self-possession is magnetic. HE JUST WANTS TO LIVE, DAMMIT! At least, that’s what I got from these two minutes and change of trailer footage. And let’s not forget what else the trailer promises: Oscar Isaac. Ed Norton. No more shaky-cam! Verdict: In, obviously. From Universal: The narrative architect behind the Bourne film series, Tony Gilroy, takes the helm in the next chapter of the hugely popular espionage franchise that has earned almost $1 billion at the global box office: The Bourne Legacy. The writer/director expands the Bourne universe created by Robert Ludlum with an original story that introduces us to a new hero (Jeremy Renner) whose life-or-death stakes have been triggered by the events of the first three films. For The Bourne Legacy, Renner joins fellow series newcomers Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Stacy Keach and Oscar Isaac, while franchise veterans Albert Finney, Joan Allen, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn reprise their roles. The Bourne Legacy is in theaters August 3.
High School has such a winning premise that you want to send everyone involved in making it back to the drawing board for a do-over — just take it from the top, folks, and this time everyone actually have a good time. Directed by John Stalberg, who wrote the film with Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco, this debut feature follows uptight overachiever Henry Burke (Matt Bush) as, on the eve of finals, he dabbles in pot for the first time with his childhood friend-turned-burnout king Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) — only to be told the next day that principal Leslie Gordon (an almost unrecognizable Michael Chiklis) is instating a student body-wide zero tolerance drug test. The plan the pair come up with to salvage Travis’s years of hard work and scholarship to MIT? They’re going to get the entire school high to throw off the results. This is, as far as stoner movies go, kind of ingenious, but High School rushes through the parts it should savor and then pads out its runtime with filler elsewhere — and, less forgivably, it doesn’t make getting high look like fun. The stoner comedy as a genre has few requirements other than summoning up a THC haze and being generally good-natured, but High School leaves you feeling like the sober person at a party, wincing at how everyone’s acting and wondering if that’s how you look when under the influence. This may be because that’s how Henry feels all the time — he’s a tightly wound scold who belongs to that wan breed of recent high school protagonists (see It’s Kind of a Funny Story and The Art of Getting By ) who seem on the verge of implosion thanks to some vague, self-imposed psychological distress. The hollow-eyed Henry reunites with Travis, who is leading a seemingly parentless life on a perpetual high, after nearly running into him in the parking lot and instead hitting the principal’s car and earning a detention. “You come to see how the other half lives?” sneers Travis, who’s stuck there too. It rings strange — the division between the pair isn’t due to any class difference but to a lifestyle one, and Travis hasn’t exactly been forced to smoke pot constantly. But the two feel enough nostalgia for their younger days to end up hanging out afterward, where Travis coaxes Henry in smoking his way to an unpleasant first-time high that leaves him paranoid, dazed and with a black eye from falling out of a tree house. Because this is a stoner comedy, the fact that the setup is creaky and doesn’t quite make sense shouldn’t be a problem — except that none of the ways in which the film exaggerates are all that funny. Take Chiklis’s pompous Principal Gordon, with his flop of greasy hair and secret pervert vibe. He’s in the style of an ’80s movie authority figure like Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , one whose sole motivation is ego and spite — except that High School isn’t stylized in the same way. It’s grounded enough to realize that parents would instantly protest the gross invasion of privacy represented by mandatory drug testing, but not enough to explain why an administrator would be eager to expel the graduating class’ likely valedictorian. Its sense of rebellion is completely phony — that of a kid who, like Henry, got high one time and still talks about it. The film’s major asset, one that’s also wasted (in both senses), is Adrien Brody hamming it up as twitchy drug dealer Psycho Ed, a tattooed law school grad (he has “BOOK WORM” across his knuckles) who lost it after smoking a laced joint and has chosen instead to apply his smarts to growing high-octane weed. Sporting cornrows, his bug eyes rolling, Brody should be funny, though Ed’s a better idea than he is in practice — you’re aggressively aware that he’s just an actor showing off the way he’s playing against type rather than a character who’s amusing in his own right. There are other side figures who don’t click: Sebastian (Adhir Kalyan), Henry’s mustache-twirlingly evil rival for the top academic slot; stoner spelling bee champ Charlyne Phuc (Julia Ling), whose last name gets used for a lame joke; well-meaning assistant principal Brandon Ellis (Colin Hanks); a loopy former Deadhead teacher (Yeardley Smith). The movie’s big event — the spiking of bake sale brownies with THC crystals — takes place early on rather than toward the end, so it doesn’t result in the kind of delirious chaotic payoff you’d expect or want from the film. Students and teachers look dazed, lose focus and say some inexplicable things, and by the time the goofiness comes along, it’s too late. It is, horror of horrors, a portrayal of a mildly realistic high, which in the context of what should be an over-the-top film is really the last thing you want. What’s the use of a stoner film if it can’t convince you that there’s at least some fun to be had in the warm embrace of cannabis? Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
High School has such a winning premise that you want to send everyone involved in making it back to the drawing board for a do-over — just take it from the top, folks, and this time everyone actually have a good time. Directed by John Stalberg, who wrote the film with Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco, this debut feature follows uptight overachiever Henry Burke (Matt Bush) as, on the eve of finals, he dabbles in pot for the first time with his childhood friend-turned-burnout king Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) — only to be told the next day that principal Leslie Gordon (an almost unrecognizable Michael Chiklis) is instating a student body-wide zero tolerance drug test. The plan the pair come up with to salvage Travis’s years of hard work and scholarship to MIT? They’re going to get the entire school high to throw off the results. This is, as far as stoner movies go, kind of ingenious, but High School rushes through the parts it should savor and then pads out its runtime with filler elsewhere — and, less forgivably, it doesn’t make getting high look like fun. The stoner comedy as a genre has few requirements other than summoning up a THC haze and being generally good-natured, but High School leaves you feeling like the sober person at a party, wincing at how everyone’s acting and wondering if that’s how you look when under the influence. This may be because that’s how Henry feels all the time — he’s a tightly wound scold who belongs to that wan breed of recent high school protagonists (see It’s Kind of a Funny Story and The Art of Getting By ) who seem on the verge of implosion thanks to some vague, self-imposed psychological distress. The hollow-eyed Henry reunites with Travis, who is leading a seemingly parentless life on a perpetual high, after nearly running into him in the parking lot and instead hitting the principal’s car and earning a detention. “You come to see how the other half lives?” sneers Travis, who’s stuck there too. It rings strange — the division between the pair isn’t due to any class difference but to a lifestyle one, and Travis hasn’t exactly been forced to smoke pot constantly. But the two feel enough nostalgia for their younger days to end up hanging out afterward, where Travis coaxes Henry in smoking his way to an unpleasant first-time high that leaves him paranoid, dazed and with a black eye from falling out of a tree house. Because this is a stoner comedy, the fact that the setup is creaky and doesn’t quite make sense shouldn’t be a problem — except that none of the ways in which the film exaggerates are all that funny. Take Chiklis’s pompous Principal Gordon, with his flop of greasy hair and secret pervert vibe. He’s in the style of an ’80s movie authority figure like Mr. Rooney in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , one whose sole motivation is ego and spite — except that High School isn’t stylized in the same way. It’s grounded enough to realize that parents would instantly protest the gross invasion of privacy represented by mandatory drug testing, but not enough to explain why an administrator would be eager to expel the graduating class’ likely valedictorian. Its sense of rebellion is completely phony — that of a kid who, like Henry, got high one time and still talks about it. The film’s major asset, one that’s also wasted (in both senses), is Adrien Brody hamming it up as twitchy drug dealer Psycho Ed, a tattooed law school grad (he has “BOOK WORM” across his knuckles) who lost it after smoking a laced joint and has chosen instead to apply his smarts to growing high-octane weed. Sporting cornrows, his bug eyes rolling, Brody should be funny, though Ed’s a better idea than he is in practice — you’re aggressively aware that he’s just an actor showing off the way he’s playing against type rather than a character who’s amusing in his own right. There are other side figures who don’t click: Sebastian (Adhir Kalyan), Henry’s mustache-twirlingly evil rival for the top academic slot; stoner spelling bee champ Charlyne Phuc (Julia Ling), whose last name gets used for a lame joke; well-meaning assistant principal Brandon Ellis (Colin Hanks); a loopy former Deadhead teacher (Yeardley Smith). The movie’s big event — the spiking of bake sale brownies with THC crystals — takes place early on rather than toward the end, so it doesn’t result in the kind of delirious chaotic payoff you’d expect or want from the film. Students and teachers look dazed, lose focus and say some inexplicable things, and by the time the goofiness comes along, it’s too late. It is, horror of horrors, a portrayal of a mildly realistic high, which in the context of what should be an over-the-top film is really the last thing you want. What’s the use of a stoner film if it can’t convince you that there’s at least some fun to be had in the warm embrace of cannabis? Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“That’s right, Tom Cruise is the same age that Wilford Brimley was when Brimley starred as a grandfather in Cocoon ” — as are George Clooney, Eddie Murphy and eight others featured in this new, head-exploding context. “[… I]t’s not really a statement on the age of Cruise or the other people on this list — it’s the fact that Wilford Brimley was only 49 years old when he starred as an elderly man who leaves Earth with a group of aliens in an effort to escape the specter of death. (His friends were played by the more age-appropriate 76-year-old Don Ameche, 75-year-old Jessica Tandy, 73-year-old Hume Cronyn, 76-year-old Jack Gilford; today, Brimley is still only 77 years old.)” [ Huffington Post ]
Casting news continues to trickle out for the film based on the wild life and times of CBGB, none of which is quite as eye-opening as word that the story of one of New York City’s most legendary, lamented live-music venues will be filmed largely in… Savannah, Georgia. So it goes! We get some stuntbozo driving a sportscar into a Sbarro for Jerry Bruckheimer, and Savannah gets Malin Åkerman as Debbie Harry , Rupert Grint as Cheetah Chrome, Joel David Moore as Joey Ramone, and Alan Rickman in the aforementioned role of club proprietor Hilly Kristal, all reviving the dawn of punk and new wave in the edgy metropolis where the Girl Scouts were founded Hollywood honchos go to self-immolate . Rock on, bitches : All of the movie’s interior shots will be done at Meddin Studios, which will be transformed to look like the iconic New York club, said director Randall Miller. “We’re going to build the interior of the club on the stages here,” Miller said. “Then the plan is we’ll do some shooting on the streets of downtown Savannah — and finally a few days in New York. “We’re using both Georgia and New York for New York,” he joked. “Savannah has a kind of downtown area that could really work for so many cities,” Miller said. “That translates pretty well in what we’re doing.” Fine, do what you’ve gotta do. By which I mean cast James Franco as Richard Hell already . [ The Strut , Savannah Morning News via EV Grieve ]
Casting news continues to trickle out for the film based on the wild life and times of CBGB, none of which is quite as eye-opening as word that the story of one of New York City’s most legendary, lamented live-music venues will be filmed largely in… Savannah, Georgia. So it goes! We get some stuntbozo driving a sportscar into a Sbarro for Jerry Bruckheimer, and Savannah gets Malin Åkerman as Debbie Harry , Rupert Grint as Cheetah Chrome, Joel David Moore as Joey Ramone, and Alan Rickman in the aforementioned role of club proprietor Hilly Kristal, all reviving the dawn of punk and new wave in the edgy metropolis where the Girl Scouts were founded Hollywood honchos go to self-immolate . Rock on, bitches : All of the movie’s interior shots will be done at Meddin Studios, which will be transformed to look like the iconic New York club, said director Randall Miller. “We’re going to build the interior of the club on the stages here,” Miller said. “Then the plan is we’ll do some shooting on the streets of downtown Savannah — and finally a few days in New York. “We’re using both Georgia and New York for New York,” he joked. “Savannah has a kind of downtown area that could really work for so many cities,” Miller said. “That translates pretty well in what we’re doing.” Fine, do what you’ve gotta do. By which I mean cast James Franco as Richard Hell already . [ The Strut , Savannah Morning News via EV Grieve ]
In the wake of Rich Ross’s departure from Disney , former Warner Bros. chairman Alan Horn has landed the job of replacing him — and turning the studio around from its John Carter epic fail. Horn, who guided WB to hit franchises like Harry Potter and The Dark Knight (and, fun fact, was also in the Air Force!), will now head all of Disney, Pixar, and Marvel Studios films, along with Touchstone-distributed DreamWorks titles. So, best of luck. No pressure or anything! Full press release: BURBANK, Calif. – May 31, 2012 – Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, announced today that Alan Horn has been named Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios effective June 11. Horn will oversee worldwide operations for The Walt Disney Studios including production, distribution and marketing for live-action and animated films from Disney, Pixar and Marvel, as well as marketing and distribution for DreamWorks Studios films released under the Touchstone Pictures banner. Disney’s music and theatrical divisions will also report to Horn. Horn has been a prominent figure in the film and television industry overseeing creative executive teams responsible for some of the world’s most successful entertainment properties including the Harry Potter film franchise and the hit television series Seinfeld among others. “Alan not only has an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience in the business, he has a true appreciation of movie making as both an art and a business,” said Iger. “He’s earned the respect of the industry for driving tremendous, sustained creative and financial success, and is also known and admired for his impeccable taste and integrity. He brings all of this to his new role leading our studio group, and I truly look forward to working with him.” “I’m incredibly excited about joining The Walt Disney Company, one of the most iconic and beloved entertainment companies in the world,” said Horn. “I love the motion picture business and look forward to making a contribution as part of Bob Iger’s team working closely with the dedicated and talented group at the studio.” Horn was most recently President and COO of Warner Bros. Entertainment where he had oversight of the Studios’ theatrical and home entertainment operations, including the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, Warner Premiere (direct-to-platform production), Warner Bros. Theatrical Ventures (live stage) and Warner Home Video. During his 12 year tenure, Warner Bros. Studios was the global box office leader seven times. Among the numerous critically acclaimed films and box office hits released during his tenure are all eight films in the Harry Potter series, The Dark Knight, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Happy Feet, Sherlock Holmes, The Departed, Batman Begins, Million Dollar Baby, the second and third Matrix films and the Ocean’s Eleven trilogy. Horn is also an executive producer of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Before joining Warner Bros., Horn co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He oversaw the creation of many critically acclaimed and beloved films including Best Picture Oscar nominees A Few Good Men, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile as well as When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers, In the Line of Fire and the most successful show in television history, Seinfeld. Horn has also served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and was Chairman and CEO of Embassy Communications. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute and the Museum of Broadcasting. He serves on the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute; as a Vice Chairman of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); is a co-founder of the Environmental Media Association (EMA); on the Board of Trustees for the Autry National Center in Los Angeles; and on the board of Harvard-Westlake School. Horn received his MBA from Harvard Business School and served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force. [ Deadline ]
Why can’t heroines just be heroines anymore, instead of micromanaged personalities who may as well have the words “Role Model” tattooed across their foreheads? That’s the fate suffered by poor Kristen Stewart as the warrior princess athlete orphan Christ figure Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman . She’s not just Joan of Arc — she’s Joan of Archetypes. Moviegoers who love Kristen Stewart — and they include a distinctive subgroup who avoid the Twilight pictures as a vampire eschews sunlight — have long been waiting for Snow White and the Huntsman , hoping to see this enormously appealing actress in a role that is, at last, worthy of her. I think Stewart has held her ground admirably enough in the Twilight pictures, particularly the profoundly crazy-ass Breaking Dawn – Part I , which gives her character something to do other than swan about moodily. (They don’t call her Bella Swan for nothing.) She also made a fine and fierce Joan Jett in Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways . But Snow White and the Huntsman , the debut feature of Rupert Sanders , does her no favors. This Snow White is clearly designed to be a young woman of agency, not a girly-girl victim who waits around for a prince to save her. The problem is that she’s so admirable, so aggressively self-reliant, so beloved and respected by little forest animals as well as simple-minded villagers, that she barely has time to be a woman. Stewart is laced so tightly into her character that she can hardly breathe, let alone give a performance. Luckily, Charlize Theron — as the really, really wicked Queen Ravenna — is on hand to give us something to watch, and boy, does she. This is, of course, a “dark” version of the fairy tale, not a cheerful one, and as written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini, it at least half-delivers on that score. The picture opens with a quick backstory, revealing how the young and ravishing Ravenna tricked Snow’s father, a poor widowed king, into marrying her before murdering him on their marital bed. Along with her hapless twit of a brother, Finn (Sam Spruell) — the two have a quasi-incestuous, master-and-servant relationship — she takes over the kingdom, turning it into a place of darkness and death, as was her plan all along. She also locks away the orphaned Snow, who starts out as a little girl before morphing into the comely but feisty K Stew. Snow eventually manages to escape into the forest, which, under Ravenna’s rule, has become a wasteland in which tangled branches transform into writhing, hissing serpents and flowers that appear to be made of mussel shells glisten with venomous portent. Snow needs help, but just a little. And when a sturdy local huntsman shows up — he’s played by Chris Hemsworth, of Thor and The Avengers — the two reluctantly join forces, though Snow has not forgotten her first love, a duke’s son named William (Sam Claflin), even though we can all see how boring, if good-looking, he is. Snow White and the Huntsman isn’t as willfully hammy as that other recent entry in the Brothers Grimm source-material parade, Tarsem Singh’s Mirror, Mirror , and it’s not as enjoyable either, though admittedly it’s a completely different creature. Production designer Dominic Watkins sure knocked himself out here: One of the movie’s most fantastic backdrops is a fairy refuge inhabited by slippery, naked little creatures with pointed ears and oversized peepers; their homeland is also populated by stands of mushrooms, each sporting a single, blinking eye, and moss-covered turtles that provide handy landing pads for clouds of butterflies. Most magnificently, this forest is also home to a dignified-looking white hart with a set of antlers that spread as wide and as tall as the branches of an oak. (They resemble, in the good way, an over-the-top showgirl headdress.) The hart bows in respect to Snow, because it’s clear she has the power of healing, of leadership, of having fabulous hair even though she’s been fighting her way through an ugly forest for days on end. She’s also a great warrior, as we see during the picture’s lavish but oddly unexciting climactic battle sequence. She doesn’t even need a cadre of great English character actors disguised as dwarves to save her, but they show up anyway. (The gang includes Eddie Marsan, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Toby Jones, all shot to appear height-challenged.) Stewart moves through the picture looking noble and sadly dull, unwittingly setting the stage for the evil queen to steal her show. Theron is marvelous here, playing Ravenna as a cooler-than-cool customer who’ll do anything — include draining the blood from innocent young beauties — to stay young-looking. She works wonders with dum-dum dialogue along the lines of “My beauty…fades,” and struts around boldly, doing justice to Colleen Atwood’s luxurious glittering-metallic costumes. (At least one of these appears to be an obvious nod to the late British designer Alexander McQueen, featuring a collar of shiny black plumes that fan around the queen’s face like an ornithological lion’s mane.) Snow White and the Huntsman looks great. And yet even there, it’s often guilty of trying too hard. The picture was shot by Greig Fraser (the DP behind great-looking pictures like Bright Star and Let Me In ), and many of its images are arresting. But it also features a number of “what for?” visuals that have no real reason to exist other than that they look cool. At one point Ravenna submerges herself in a creamy-white milk bath (cool!) and emerges as a figurine coated in porcelain (wha…?). Clearly, this is one of her special magic beauty treatments, but it doesn’t make sense even in a fantastical way. And it’s emblematic of all the ways in which Snow White and the Huntsman works overtime to wow us, to make us shiver, to remind us that, hey, girls can be strong too! This Snow White is no wussy princess. But her tomboy nobility is no match for the imperious Ravenna and her succession of liquid-stainless-steel gowns and spiky medieval-gal-on-the-rag headgear. Don’t see Snow White and the Huntsman for its ho-hum empowerment message. See it for the killer clothes. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Why can’t heroines just be heroines anymore, instead of micromanaged personalities who may as well have the words “Role Model” tattooed across their foreheads? That’s the fate suffered by poor Kristen Stewart as the warrior princess athlete orphan Christ figure Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman . She’s not just Joan of Arc — she’s Joan of Archetypes. Moviegoers who love Kristen Stewart — and they include a distinctive subgroup who avoid the Twilight pictures as a vampire eschews sunlight — have long been waiting for Snow White and the Huntsman , hoping to see this enormously appealing actress in a role that is, at last, worthy of her. I think Stewart has held her ground admirably enough in the Twilight pictures, particularly the profoundly crazy-ass Breaking Dawn – Part I , which gives her character something to do other than swan about moodily. (They don’t call her Bella Swan for nothing.) She also made a fine and fierce Joan Jett in Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways . But Snow White and the Huntsman , the debut feature of Rupert Sanders , does her no favors. This Snow White is clearly designed to be a young woman of agency, not a girly-girl victim who waits around for a prince to save her. The problem is that she’s so admirable, so aggressively self-reliant, so beloved and respected by little forest animals as well as simple-minded villagers, that she barely has time to be a woman. Stewart is laced so tightly into her character that she can hardly breathe, let alone give a performance. Luckily, Charlize Theron — as the really, really wicked Queen Ravenna — is on hand to give us something to watch, and boy, does she. This is, of course, a “dark” version of the fairy tale, not a cheerful one, and as written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini, it at least half-delivers on that score. The picture opens with a quick backstory, revealing how the young and ravishing Ravenna tricked Snow’s father, a poor widowed king, into marrying her before murdering him on their marital bed. Along with her hapless twit of a brother, Finn (Sam Spruell) — the two have a quasi-incestuous, master-and-servant relationship — she takes over the kingdom, turning it into a place of darkness and death, as was her plan all along. She also locks away the orphaned Snow, who starts out as a little girl before morphing into the comely but feisty K Stew. Snow eventually manages to escape into the forest, which, under Ravenna’s rule, has become a wasteland in which tangled branches transform into writhing, hissing serpents and flowers that appear to be made of mussel shells glisten with venomous portent. Snow needs help, but just a little. And when a sturdy local huntsman shows up — he’s played by Chris Hemsworth, of Thor and The Avengers — the two reluctantly join forces, though Snow has not forgotten her first love, a duke’s son named William (Sam Claflin), even though we can all see how boring, if good-looking, he is. Snow White and the Huntsman isn’t as willfully hammy as that other recent entry in the Brothers Grimm source-material parade, Tarsem Singh’s Mirror, Mirror , and it’s not as enjoyable either, though admittedly it’s a completely different creature. Production designer Dominic Watkins sure knocked himself out here: One of the movie’s most fantastic backdrops is a fairy refuge inhabited by slippery, naked little creatures with pointed ears and oversized peepers; their homeland is also populated by stands of mushrooms, each sporting a single, blinking eye, and moss-covered turtles that provide handy landing pads for clouds of butterflies. Most magnificently, this forest is also home to a dignified-looking white hart with a set of antlers that spread as wide and as tall as the branches of an oak. (They resemble, in the good way, an over-the-top showgirl headdress.) The hart bows in respect to Snow, because it’s clear she has the power of healing, of leadership, of having fabulous hair even though she’s been fighting her way through an ugly forest for days on end. She’s also a great warrior, as we see during the picture’s lavish but oddly unexciting climactic battle sequence. She doesn’t even need a cadre of great English character actors disguised as dwarves to save her, but they show up anyway. (The gang includes Eddie Marsan, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Toby Jones, all shot to appear height-challenged.) Stewart moves through the picture looking noble and sadly dull, unwittingly setting the stage for the evil queen to steal her show. Theron is marvelous here, playing Ravenna as a cooler-than-cool customer who’ll do anything — include draining the blood from innocent young beauties — to stay young-looking. She works wonders with dum-dum dialogue along the lines of “My beauty…fades,” and struts around boldly, doing justice to Colleen Atwood’s luxurious glittering-metallic costumes. (At least one of these appears to be an obvious nod to the late British designer Alexander McQueen, featuring a collar of shiny black plumes that fan around the queen’s face like an ornithological lion’s mane.) Snow White and the Huntsman looks great. And yet even there, it’s often guilty of trying too hard. The picture was shot by Greig Fraser (the DP behind great-looking pictures like Bright Star and Let Me In ), and many of its images are arresting. But it also features a number of “what for?” visuals that have no real reason to exist other than that they look cool. At one point Ravenna submerges herself in a creamy-white milk bath (cool!) and emerges as a figurine coated in porcelain (wha…?). Clearly, this is one of her special magic beauty treatments, but it doesn’t make sense even in a fantastical way. And it’s emblematic of all the ways in which Snow White and the Huntsman works overtime to wow us, to make us shiver, to remind us that, hey, girls can be strong too! This Snow White is no wussy princess. But her tomboy nobility is no match for the imperious Ravenna and her succession of liquid-stainless-steel gowns and spiky medieval-gal-on-the-rag headgear. Don’t see Snow White and the Huntsman for its ho-hum empowerment message. See it for the killer clothes. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
