You have a film with an Ice Princess in it. This same film stars Jessica Chastain. And these two are not the same person?! Well, geez, you lose ten points for casting before you even get off the blocks. I’m not going to belabor the point, but if you look at her resume, Jessica Chastain is as aloof and stony as actors get; Ice Princess is the role she was born to play. Not sure what any of you were thinking.
After rewriting the Sleeping Beauty tale with Maleficent last season, Disney decided to revisit Frozen for their prequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. Remember how Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) was all beautiful and evil in the first film? Get this; she has a sister. Have you ever broken up with a gorgeous evil queen and said, “by the way, do you have a sister?” Freya (Emily Blunt) has everything go her way for at least two
minutes, and then her husband kills their newborn (whaaaa?), so she takes the logical next step of moving north, taking over a castle and making a queendom of ice and snow where love is forbidden. Logical, very logical. And then she steals all the children in the land, brainwashes them and makes them Huntsmen.
This is where THE Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) comes in. And he’s not alone. At the head of the first Huntsclass are he and Sara (Chastain). I’m not sure why Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain go with Scottish accents. I can’t claim any expertise on Higlander speak, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for either self-directing Braveheart 2. Anyhoo, unable to slay one another in dismemberment practice, the two fall in love, awwww, and are hence attacked on Freya’s orders. The last thing H sees before being dumped and left for dead into the local river is Sara dying.
And then … Dwarves! A lot of dwarves. Dwarves from people who aren’t even dwarfy, like Rob Brydon and Nick Frost. What is up with that? Has “Game of Thrones” addled your minds? Is this what passes for diversity now?
Lord knows, The Huntsman: Winter’s War wasn’t a good tale (nor good title), but I’ll give it a thumbs up for having a decent pair of villains, more-or-less capturing my attention for two hours and for losing Kristen Stewart. (You’ve made a Snow White 
prequel/sequel without Snow White? Nice choice.) Yes, the film had a fair amount of Jessica Chastain, but I’ll take that swap any day. Now what’s up with the hint that the sisters of Frozen were evil?
So as long we’re getting a Hunstman origin story, say, can we get a mirror origin story as well … back when he was forged from Mithril and a Magic 8 Ball. Maybe we can see little mirror growing up and calling the pet dog Spanky, “the fairest one of all.” When does he get an origin story, huh? Maybe you can call it “Compact, Compact.”
Got stolen from home to a land in the North
They teach us fight in all sorts of brawls
The bullying fluctuates back and forth
Everything’s cold, including my [legs]
But I met somebody to help cure the blue
There goes cold slayer; my heart’s all a whirl
Say, her highness is an Ice Princess, too
Uh oh, I dunno which one is my girl
Beaten and banished without my cohorts
Now forever in country I roam
If this were a reasonable tale of sorts
I suppose I could simply go home
Rated PG-13, 114 Minutes
D: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
W: Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin
Genre: Frozen … from another perspective
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Drifters, mercenaries
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Ice Princesses
