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    The Huntsman Winter's War

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” puzzles me. I’m not saying that it’s unnecessary, but what is going on with this film? Did the writers even watch the first movie, or did they just hope that we weren’t paying attention to the plot? The end results are a hodge-podge of fantasy tropes that I doubt will satisfy fans of the original.

    The film is set partially before and partially after “Snow White and the Huntsman”. Turns out that evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) has a younger sister, Freya (Emily Blunt) After a personal tragedy, Freya developed ice powers and retired to the north, determined to form an empire of her own. We learn that the titular huntsman, Eric (Chris Hemsworth) is from her personal guard, but betrayed her. When Ravenna’s magic mirror goes missing, Eric is tasked with finding it, with hints that its disappearance is tied to his dead wife, Sara (Jessica Chastain)

    It’s a mess. First of all, “Winter’s War” goes back and retcons a bunch of stuff from the first film when there was no need to do so. Remember Sam Spruell as Finn, Ravenna’s brother? This movie doesn’t. Instead, we learn that Ravenna has a younger sister, one conveniently not mentioned and completely absent from the first movie. Do you recall Snow White and how it was hinted that Eric was her true love since he was able to bring her back to life after that ordeal with the poisoned apple? Never addressed. In fact, Snow White doesn’t appear in the film at all. The Prince? What Prince? You may be wondering whatever happened to the seven dwarves after their big battle against the Queen’s army. A single dwarf (Nion, played by Nick Frost) returns. These are all signs of troubled waters ahead and believe me, it’s just the beginning.

    I wish I could sit down with the screenwriters and talk to them personally. This is not how you do a sequel. It tosses away elements of the first film liberally and then introduces new stuff without logic. I could have sworn that dwarves were really rare, nearly extinct thanks to Ravenna. This movie introduces 3 new ones (what, did none of the actors from the previous movie want to come back except for Nick Frost? ) We learn that there are goblins in this world. Ok, that sort of comes out of the blue, but sure. They’re introduced, appear for about 15 minutes and then disappear, never to be mentioned again. That’s bad enough but it gets worse. We’re told that goblins are greedy creatures, obsessed with gold. Why do they make their weapons out of gold and jewels then? If you make your arrowheads and spear tips with diamonds and gold, you’re not being greedy. You’re literally throwing away your riches!

    It’s like some kind of Bizarro-world riddle. The more logic you apply to it, the less it makes sense. Freya is running away from a personal tragedy and sets up this ice kingdom where love is forbidden like some kind of Mrs. Freeze. So let’s get this straight. It’s a war-driven empire that can’t grow food, and doesn’t allow people to fall in love and have children? Furthermore, we never see her joining the front line, so how exactly has she managed to conquer nation after nation is she some kind of superior strategist because she lives in a perpetual freezer? And this scheme to dominate the world; to what end? To squelch all love from existence? Another question. So in the first film, we saw that Queen Ravenna had to keep drinking the youth of virgins to sustain herself and stay beautiful. How come Freya doesn’t have to do anything similar? The questions add up so quickly you can hardly concentrate on the movie.

    More than illogical, the film is poorly written. Two characters get written out so they can be absent for a large chunk of the film and then come back later without any explanation, making it clear that this film isn’t interested in anyone besides Freya, Ravenna, Sara and Eric. Two characters come back from the dead. Not one, but two! There’s having someone fall down a ravine and then show up later, and then there’s simply undoing what the previous movie established. I feel like I could have fixed most of this film’s problems too. Is it necessary for Freya to be related to the evil queen? Just make her some other evil empress that wants the mirror. Take out those goblins and re-use that troll from the first film. He had nothing to do and is just another lumbering monster, so why not? I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil anything for those determined to watch the movie.

    Like the first movie, “Huntsman: Winter’s War” looks terrific. There are cool-looking creatures and sets. The costumes are stunning. The cinematography is great. It’s all in the service of a generic fantasy salad though. Even more disappointing is that it wastes the talents of great actors like Emily Blunt, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron and Jessica Chastain. You won’t care about their adventures since every twist is predictable, unless it isn’t because it makes no sense. There are so many issues that should have been taken care of before filming even started you’d swear this was rushed into production, but “Snow White and the Huntsman” came out in 2012! Even if you’re a big fan of the first film, “The Huntsman: Winter’s War” won’t satisfy you at all. (Theatrical version on the big screen, April 30, 2016)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  6.5.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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