As long as they continue to make money, Disney will continue to launch live remakes from its animated classics, even if it means sacrificing its magic in the process. All the art is subjective, which means that there is no universal truth to declare what determines the “best” or “worse” of these reimagins, but I can say with confidence that Rachel Zegler is, hands down, the best Disney princess live that we have never seen. Notice, I have a deep affinity for the absolutely perfect representation of Lily James of Cinderella, but I also deplored that she could not sing “a dream is a wish that your heart makes”. Meanwhile, I am much less critical of Emma Watson’s Belle than most criticism, mainly because the story of “Beauty and the Beast” is not great, but I can always admit that something was missing to transcend the character into the type of indignable magnetism inherent in all Disney princesses.
But Rachel Zegler? Oh, Rachel Zegler was born to play a Disney princess.
From the moment Zegler appears on the screen, it is clear that even an unflattering bob haircut cannot retain its exuberant charm, its effervescent positivity, its strong strong determination and its mastering singing voice in an absolutely bewitching representation of stone white. As broken as I had to be denied “I wish” and “One day my prince will come”, Zegler has a meal from the new music of Benj Pastek and Justin Paul (“The Greatest Showman”, “Dear Evan Hansen”, “La la Land”). The big number “Waiting for a wish” can look like something that could have slipped into Disney’s animated “wish”, and like Ariana Debose in this film, her representation commanding that all racist crybabies complaining of the casting of Zegler eat from the crow until their apples rotten all the shrinking heads.
There is only one problem: Snow White de Zegler is held hostage in a film that does not deserve its talents. It is Jennifer Hudson again in “Cats”.
How to screw up evil?
Zegler’s scenes with the rebel bandit Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) – which is a fusion of Prince Charming, Robin Hood and Flynn Rider of “Tangled” puts on the hooded sweatshirt and the Ye Royale jacket – are certainly very soft, but the duo is fighting against writing which requires two dimensions. The love duo “one hand meets a hand” is essentially a whole song that loudly declares: “If this guy should kiss me when I sleep in the third act, I give my consent to all our friends to hear!” The feeling is great, but it is yet another reminder that, AS / Film Writer, Witney Seibold, underlined in his film criticism, Disney Remakes is a way to fight against online criticism of his films. The power of a song on consent is completely undermined knowing that it was a checking box and not something authentic for the White and Jonathan relationship.
But the most blatant performance comes from the star of “Wonder Woman” Gal Gadot like the nasty queen … or should I say: “Cardboard cut into a nasty queen who acquired a sensitivity and tried to imitate the first girl cut off from a season of” Rupaul’s Drag Race “of memory”. “The bad guys of Disney are very popular and some of the most emblematic characters and some of the most emblematic characters Canon, and they are all flamboyant, extravagant and ferocious divas. Gadot, on the other hand, is so in wood that it could have been torn from the office of the Gappetto workshop. The bad guys should be equal to threatening and fun, and Gadot has no idea of the film she is. Was Anne Hathaway busy or something like that? Because this film needed its turn in the remake of Robert Zemeckis of “The Witches”, because that is a woman who knows how to serve a bliss with a bad ferocity in the presence of CGI nightmarish.
The stakes never feel real because nothing threatens Gadot. The clearest thing about his performance is his precious stone crown, while the choice of having her sound as a sweet old grandmother instead of a creaky witch after the nasty queen turned into an older woman (despite the villain who performs a spell saying that her voice will be creaky) was certainly … a choice! And yet, because Zegler is willing to contort all the last muscles of his face to bring an authentic emotion to the table, his scenes with Gadot almost work. Someone calls a chiropractor at Zegler; She must be agony after having worn this film on her back.
All major updates are taken from other films
Many positive criticism criticisms of “snow white” have praised the film updates to the classic fairy tale, and although it is definitively refreshing to see a communist utopia limited to the place of a kingdom in a film directed by the largest conglomerate of entertainment which was preceded. The spishy and colorful number presenting us the kingdom led by the parents of Snow White seems almost identical to the scene of the city of the film of “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cendrella” made for television, the first meeting between Snow White and Jonathan feels picked from “Ever After” with Drew Barrymore, the Climax White Reine, Oh Captain, my captain, my captain / I ad the aesthetics of the mining scene with the seven … magic creatures (?) To look like the enchanted wish of Snow White (formerly the frightening adventures of Snow White) in Disneyland.
Speaking of this, the CGI representations of the seven “never called dwarfs” are not only strange flesh nightmares, but they cannot follow the animated vocal performance of the actors who give them life. Tenure burgess as shy, for example, knows Exactly What the character needs, but the mouth cannot effectively correspond to his level of animation. And yet, Rachel Zegler always works. The most humanized that the characters feel when they interact with it. I thought by reflex when Dopey spoke for the first time (no shadow to actor Andrew Barth Feldman, he is also innocent here) because the predictable film “he found his voice” was straight out of the film “The Little Rascals” when Uh-Huh speaks a full sentence (or when the moral message of Kevin Smith).
I do not know what in the universe aligned itself to force Zegler in roles where she must act in front of people who cannot hold her a candle (by also looking at you, Ansel Elgort and Zachary Levi), but she deserves a film in fact worthy of her star power. Tragically, that’s not it.
“Snow White” is now playing in theaters.
