Director
Marc Webb
Cast
Rachel Zegler - Snow White
Gal Gadot - the evil Queen
Andrew Burnap - Jonathan
Jeremy Swift - voice of DocJason Kravits - voice of Sneezy
Martin Klebba - voice of Grumpy
Tituss Burgess - voice of Bashful
George Salazar - voice of Happy
Andrew Grotelueschen - voice of Sleepy
Andrew Barth Feldman - voice of Dopey
Patrick Page - voice of the Magic Mirror
Ansu Kabia - the Queen's Huntsman
I'm late to the game commenting on Disney's live action remake of their first animated movie from 1937, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The remake is simply called "Snow White." I guess calling a fictional character a "dwarf" is bad? A heptalogy of dwarfs is septupley offensive!
I admit I was marred a bit by other opinions on this movie before watching it. I just couldn't completely escape all the online commentary surrounding Disney as the company felt a need to rewrite their greatest masterpiece.
So, I had an idea of what was coming. Still, I tried to come into this with a bit of an open mind. I did the same with the 2024 movie "Conclave" though that turned out to be the garbage movie I expected it to be.
I waited until "Snow White" was on Disney+ to see it as I just wasn't excited for this, not even out of curiosity regarding the amount of attention this whole thing received before its release.
All, and I mean "all" of Disney's live action remakes in the last 10 or 12 years can easily be rated on a scale between underwhelming to really bad. I'd put Disney's 2016 live action version of "The Jungle Book" on the underwhelming side of the scale. "The Jungle Book" hits one or two positive chords until Christopher Walken, who voices King Louie, awkwardly sings "I Wanna Be Like You" - the only musical number in the movie.
If Walt Disney's animated "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is an exquisite rib-eye steak dinner cooked to perfection and served at a Morton's Steakhouse somewhere in Beverly Hills (who can forget where the best steaks are served), Disney's 2025 live action remake is microwavable lab-grown "cow-meat" sold frozen at Dollar General for a discounted price. No one wants to remember that, but it's in their collective memory whether they like it or not.
So, I watched Disney's new "Snow White." I think the story needs no synopsis. I mean, if any reader doesn't know the story of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" whether from the Brothers Grimm fairytale, or the 1937 Disney film, then they must have had a terribly sheltered life. Good luck with your social life.
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is one of the most classic (I mean that in the truest meaning of the word) and most respected films ever made. It's one of many films that every man, woman, and child should see at least once in their life along with other family-friendly titles like "The Wizard of Oz," "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," and "Star Wars."
It's a movie solidly cemented in popular culture. Its songs. Its lines. Its charm. Its innocence. Everything about it is instantly recognizable. Nothing can remove "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" from the pedestal on which it has proudly sat and respected by millions, since 1937.
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was called Disney's folly back when it was released. It was hugely over budget, and had it failed, it would have destroyed the company. But it didn't fail. It made the Disney company what it is now. The height of Disney has yet to be surpassed.
Now, the media giant took the one...the "one"... groundbreaking animated masterpiece film that hoisted Walt Disney and his company to unreachable heights and defecated on it in front of their entire fan base all around the globe with this updated remake.
Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White inadvertently and arrogantly explained how this remake has been updated, no doubt to the dismay of Disney when they sent her out to promote the film.
In that infamous interview she gave to "Variety," Zegler impulsively regurgitated all the typical inane, banal, left-sided sentiments and platitudes about the original movie being too dated when it comes to female portrayals. She even referred to the prince in the original story as a "stalker" because... of course she would. 
“I just mean that it’s no longer 1937, and we absolutely wrote a Snow White who's not going be saved by the prince, and she’s not going be dreaming about true love," Zegler said. "She’s going be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be."
How platitudinous and utterly charmless!
Of course, fans of the original movie reacted accordingly, criticizing her idiotic remarks. The collective eye-roll could be heard across the world and any interest in Disney's Snow White remake that might have existed died right there.
After watching "Snow White," I'm immovably convinced without any doubt that the Disney Company no longer respects its own IP. I mean, they act completely ashamed of all...ALL...their animated feature length content that made them the favorited and trusted production company families have loved for all these decades. While each live action remake generally seems to outdo the previous remake as being abysmal and unlikable flops, they've finally outdone themselves.
As I said, Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a classic in the truest meaning of the word. It has been loved for generations. So, why rewrite it, Disney? Why rewrite any of your memorable movies all at once?
With all of Disney's live action remakes in the last 10-plus years, I thought Disney was merely cashing off their old intellectual property while making a feeble attempt to breath some more life into them as if those classic movies need "new life." No! Disney hates its past.
Funny! Fans just revert back to the original movies after these remakes spew forth.
They're remaking everything as far as their classic animated movies go, and maybe some of their live-action properties. More and more, Disney disfigures their content to "fit" with modern political ideologies. They haven't accepted the fact that when they do this, these movies crash and burn in no time.
There was a time when Disney treated their animated films as valuable gems. They kept these gems in their "Disney vault." It was an ingenious marketing device in which they would release an animated movie of theirs for a limited time before putting it back in the vault. Customers would snag a copy before the movie was gone from shelves.
Now Disney slaps warning labels (no joke) on their own past movies as seen on their streaming app, "Disney+" as if to apologize for their past. It's pathetic to watch. And these remakes, such as "Snow White," makes Disney look as though they're groveling on their knees to modern "woke" ideologues as if trying to convince them, "See! We can behave and do better. Please don't cancel us. Please!"
These live action Disney remakes of their classic IP went from being a mere novelty to reinventions of their own content.
What makes a "classic" is how well it endures time - decades, centuries? This "Snow White" is the real folly! Twenty years from now, this will only be remembered (maybe) because of the contrary. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" meanwhile will be just as loved as it is today, and as it was fifty years ago.
I honestly hate to just dump all over "Snow White" despite it being the easy target that it is. However, it's completely unappealing. Outside of what it takes from the original film such as most of the songs and a few other elements, it's really uninspiring.
Disney added some new songs to the film, and I mean this sincerely that none of those new songs are catchy or memorable. None!
The song "Someday My Prince Will Come" from the original film is replaced with "Waiting on a Wish." In this song, Snow White chants about her dream to be a fearless leader because anything else would be problematic for a female protagonist. It's too on-the-nose. Gone are Disney's best days when artists like the Sherman Brothers could produce marvelous, catchy, time-enduring and truly good songs for Disney pictures. Gone are the days of whimsical, uplifting and entertaining songs. Now, with songs like these new ones meant to change the image of Snow White, they're drab, boring, out of place, forgettable and wreak too much of a political agenda of some sort. For example, when the Evil Queen (played by Gal Gadot) transforms into the old woman and poisons an apple to give Snow White, Gadot sings a tune called "All is Fair."
Thanks in part of Gadot's boring and emotionless performance, the song is completely mismatched in that scene. I was just waiting for Gadot to break into John Lennon's "Imagine" somewhere in this movie like she did on YouTube back in 2020- a song I find even more distasteful and charmless. At least "Imagine" would have fit the Queen's evil image.
Her Snow White is more like a wandering gen-z'er meandering the realm that could be a 1500s version of Berkeley, disguised as a humble princess who's merely interested in redistributing the Queen's wealth to all those in the land. "Snow Red" is more like it.
Then she finds the cottage of the seven dwarfs just as she did in the original story, and then makes them clean their own house for her.
In the original movie, she and the cute woodland animals do the cleaning because gratitude and selflessness meant something once. However, today's over-sensitive folk can't stomach watching a woman do anything helpful for a man...let alone seven of them all at once.
There is no way for this movie remake to succeed. Disney is practically built on the 1937 movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." It's the first full length animated movie. It's a solid, foundational movie that has withstood time as generations have watched it and enjoyed it. There is no way a Disney remake of their groundbreaking film would succeed. No way! Audiences will immediately compare it to the original classic which it can't hold a candle to.
The movie's budget was somewhere around $240 million according to "Variety." It opened domestically at $43 million which was below the $50 million projections. Overseas, it pulled in $44.3 million though it had a global projection of $87.3 million.
This movie is just an unsalvageable disaster all around. I just couldn't get myself to care what happened to Snow White, nor did I find her motivations believable. I'll just say it. The whole thing as a potent stench of modern left-wing propaganda.
Zegler was the worst casting choice beginning with her appearing more like a DEI hire to play a character who's described in the original story as having skin as white as snow. I find it hard to believe Disney hired her solely for any talent she might have. As my nine-year-old daughter inquired, "Why is she Snow White?" Honestly, she asked that on her own accord. But we all know the answer. It's because Zegler isn't white. That's the bias we find acceptable these days.
The film's writers couldn't even give the character's name, Snow White, its original backstory. In this fractured fairy tale remake, Snow White's mother finds herself in the middle of a bad snowstorm when she gives birth. So she names her "Snow White." Never mind the fact that this carries the story into the realm of completely nonsensical stupidity because modern sensitivities dictate there cannot be a good character who both displays good qualities and morals worth emulating and is also white. Not only white, but having skin "as white as snow," as the story of Snow White originally describes her. Disney couldn't even cast a white actor to play "Snow White." Producers clearly "needed" to come up with a different origin for her name, and this is the best they could do. How embarrassing.
So, another slow clap to Disney for taking Walt's masterpiece film and holding their noses to it.
Zegler at least tries to put on a show. She does put in effort during her musical numbers.
Gadot barely has any emotion and lacks any intimidation. She physically looks the part of an evil queen, but that's as far as it goes.
The dwarfs look like CGI creations for a straight-to-DVD version of Snow White made for a quick buck.
The lack of chemistry between Zegler's Snow White and the CGI dwarfs stands out like...well...like a CGI dwarf in a poorly made Snow White movie.
My 10-year-old so aptly observed that the dwarf Dopey strongly resembles Alfred E. Neuman straight from a MAD Magazine cover. What's really odd is that Alfred looks dopier than this Dopey.
The Dopey in this remake is a more sophisticated yet depressed version of the character from Disney's original movie. Honestly, there's nothing "dopey" about him. They should have changed his name to "Troubled." That would have made more sense.
As for the rest of the dwarfs, I had trouble distinguishing which one was which.
Funny! In today's social climate when it suddenly became offensive about 10-minutes ago for actors to play characters that don't reflect the race, lifestyle, or in this case, size of the actor themselves, I guess for "Snow White" the morons at Disney felt the "moral" alternative was to deny seven short-statured actors the opportunity to star in a Disney film and play short-statured characters, and earn a sizeable paycheck.
They didn't even hire short people to voice the dwarfs, save for Martin Klebba who's the voice and facial motion-capture for Grumpy. Slow clap for Disney!
Frankly, I don't care about any of that. I don't care who plays what. I'm just looking at this self-righteousness emanating from Hollywood elites in near-wonderment. The mental gymnastics they must deal with in following their own rules is exhausting to think about. Thank God I'm not in their camp.
Instead of a prince, the movie tosses in "Jonathan" (Andrew Burnap). He's a local rebel/ thief who's more like a redistributionist out to stick it to the Queen and society rather than a man of moral clarity and leadership. You know...kind of like a prince. 
He meanders around with a group of thieves, or more aptly, social justice warriors just out to protest the regime.
These thieves were once actors who were forced to leave their acting craft and resort to thievery because the Queen's high taxes forced them to steal. To me, there's a subtle smell of criticism towards a certain sitting president and his administration. Yawn.
I wouldn't be surprised if the controversy leading up to "Snow White's" release was a mere method to attract audiences to see what this thing is all about. Without it, I sincerely doubt "Snow White" could attract audiences. Disney needed something to attract crowds.
Disney came up with a charmless remake that's focused more on appeasing modern ideologues by checking all the "correct" boxes rather than telling (or retelling) a timeless classic fairy tale. This one sets up Snow White as a girl boss fighting for distribution of goods and equity of outcome as though she's a comrade. Otherwise, I really don't know what point I am supposed to take away from this flick.
The whole story ends on such an anti-climactic note like paper money going up in a poof. The original animated film has a scene with the dwarfs fighting the evil Queen forcing her off a cliff.
In this remake, Snow White returns to the Queen, remembers the names of the villagers so they rally behind her, and the evil Queen is sucked into her magic mirror. It's rather anti-climactic, and ends in an awkward dance fest where all the villagers alongside Snow White dance around the main square of the village. It's awkward.
Disney needs to cease these lame live-action remake failures that I have trouble believing are more aimed at pleasing their audience with whom they're completely out of touch with in the first place. Disney needs to stand by their OG movies with confidence and appreciation! This remake is another crappy re-write of a classic tale that deserves to be forgotten.
I walked away from this movie with only one thing worth hanging onto - a greater respect and appreciation for everything about the original Disney movie. Disney gave its foundation a proverbial middle finger. They've outdone themselves in hating on their past like it's something to be torn down in the same way a protestor tears down a statue. This sad remake is nothing more than a tiresome progressive red cloaked screed.
