“Snow White” live action review - opinion piece
By Miller Rogers-Tetrick
April 15, 2025
Image Credit: Everett Collection
While Disney has found success with live-action remakes of classics, its new live-action remake of “Snow White” falls short of the expectations of its historical fairy tale predecessor. While there are evident changes to the film that look to adapt to today’s audiences, some parts bring necessary and sometimes updated context to the background of legendary characters.
The new film gives the audience a meaningful and heartwarming backstory of Snow White. Disney attempts to show what Snow White lost during her childhood while also depicting the loss felt throughout her kingdom.
From that moment on, the film falls short of what could have been a film for the ages. Gal Gadot's acting crumbles under the pressure of the iconic character of the Evil Queen; even the iconic mirror has more of a sense of urgency and emotion than compared to Gadot, who seems to just be reading from a script.
However, with all the changes from the original script, iconic moments attempt to stick the landing. Even though Snow White and her love interest don’t follow the same path as in the original fairy tale, there is a genuine attempt at fabricating a nostalgic feeling for those who have watched the original film, like the iconic kiss between Snow White and her love interest or the defeat of the Evil Queen.
While attempting to connect those two bridges, the run time of the movie and sometimes passive acting defeats and holds down these classic moments due to lack of emotion and occasionally questionable CGI, as the film's final act struggles to connect all of what has come before.
With its rough preproduction, during, and postproduction journey, “Snow White” has struggled to create a pleasant viewing experience for what should be the retelling of this story for the ages.
When the casting of Rachel Zegler as Snow White was announced, Disney fans took to social media to voice their backlash and opinions on Zegler, who is Latina, to play the iconic part of the black bobbed hair, brown eyes and skin as white as snow princess.
The controversies don’t stop there when approaching the challenge of adapting the seven dwarfs. Disney found themselves under fire, while fans still shouted outrage about the changes already made to the film. Peter Dinklage strongly criticized Disney’s approach to the adaptation of the seven dwarfs.
“You’re progressive in one way but then you’re still making that f*cking back wards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what the f*ck are you doing, man?” Dinklage said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
All of this led to the movie's production heading toward having the seven dwarfs animated, launching full force into the production and media tours for the film.
Snow White premiered in theatres March 11, bringing in only $43 million in box offices with 40% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 73% audience score.
The new film gives the audience a meaningful and heartwarming backstory of Snow White. Disney attempts to show what Snow White lost during her childhood while also depicting the loss felt throughout her kingdom.
From that moment on, the film falls short of what could have been a film for the ages. Gal Gadot's acting crumbles under the pressure of the iconic character of the Evil Queen; even the iconic mirror has more of a sense of urgency and emotion than compared to Gadot, who seems to just be reading from a script.
However, with all the changes from the original script, iconic moments attempt to stick the landing. Even though Snow White and her love interest don’t follow the same path as in the original fairy tale, there is a genuine attempt at fabricating a nostalgic feeling for those who have watched the original film, like the iconic kiss between Snow White and her love interest or the defeat of the Evil Queen.
While attempting to connect those two bridges, the run time of the movie and sometimes passive acting defeats and holds down these classic moments due to lack of emotion and occasionally questionable CGI, as the film's final act struggles to connect all of what has come before.
With its rough preproduction, during, and postproduction journey, “Snow White” has struggled to create a pleasant viewing experience for what should be the retelling of this story for the ages.
When the casting of Rachel Zegler as Snow White was announced, Disney fans took to social media to voice their backlash and opinions on Zegler, who is Latina, to play the iconic part of the black bobbed hair, brown eyes and skin as white as snow princess.
The controversies don’t stop there when approaching the challenge of adapting the seven dwarfs. Disney found themselves under fire, while fans still shouted outrage about the changes already made to the film. Peter Dinklage strongly criticized Disney’s approach to the adaptation of the seven dwarfs.
“You’re progressive in one way but then you’re still making that f*cking back wards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what the f*ck are you doing, man?” Dinklage said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.
All of this led to the movie's production heading toward having the seven dwarfs animated, launching full force into the production and media tours for the film.
Snow White premiered in theatres March 11, bringing in only $43 million in box offices with 40% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 73% audience score.