Despite its beauty, ‘The Huntsman: Winter’s War’ might not be the fairy tale you’re hoping for

“If it’s a fairy tale you’re hoping for, prepare yourself for so much more.”

“The Huntsman: Winter’s War” is a follow-up to the 2012 commercial hit “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Oddly, it’s both a prequel and a sequel, and even more oddly, there’s no Snow White in it.

That wasn’t the original plan, of course. But things changed when the actress playing Snow White, Kristen Stewart, was caught in an affair with her married director. The ensuing scandal was deemed so detrimental to this fairy-tale franchise that first the director was fired, and later, after a failed attempt at carrying on with Stewart and a new director, Stewart was also dropped.

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To make the break with the original film even cleaner, the Snow White character was eventually scrubbed from the sequel altogether. That’s how we ended up with a movie named after some unknown huntsman, instead of the universally known Snow White.

But then, without Snow White, what’s the sequel supposed to be about? How about “Frozen?” The insanely popular Disney film drew its inspiration from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” and so too does “The Huntsman: Winter’s War.” It stitches together the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen by making Snow White’s evil stepmother a sister of the Ice Queen.

In order to make this storyline work, the movie begins prior to the first film – when the two sisters are living in the castle together – and then picks up after that first film ends when the stepmother is dead and the Ice Queen is ruling a freezing kingdom with an iron fist. Most of the latter part of the movie involves a battle between the Ice Queen and the huntsman over possession of the magic mirror of “mirror, mirror, on the wall” fame.

Despite the somewhat wrenched plotting of “Winter’s War,” the two films are very much of a piece. Like the first film, this follow-up is much more invested in its look than in its story or its characters. The gorgeous golden hues of the famous molten mirror from the original, for instance, now give way to the gorgeous grey-white hues of snowy landscapes and ice palaces. Both films are, first and foremost, art directors’ dream visions: beautiful actors (Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt) in stunning costumes and makeup, parading around on elaborate, color-coordinated sets. (Perhaps not surprisingly, the new director was the visual effects coordinator in the first film.)

But as winning (and beautiful) as the individual cast-members are, they can’t infuse the film with enough emotion or imbue their characters with enough heart to make us care much about any of their fates. In the beginning, the Ice Queen sets out to banish love in her kingdom but of course, she doesn’t succeed. Unfortunately, this film is all too successful in banishing the audience’s emotions.