My thoughts:
Yea: Re-imagining a children's tale with more edge and violence. What's not to like? It stars Oscar Winner Charlize Theron as the evil queen, the effects look better than those in recent fantasy epics (I'm looking at you Narnia films), has Chris Hemsworth of Thor fame as the anti-hero/romantic interest "The Huntsman," and some surprisingly great casting with regard to the "Dwarves," all of whom are actors that you might not recognize by name but surely would by face: Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Eddie Izzard, Ray Winstone, Eddie Marsan, Stephan Graham, and Toby Jones.
Nay: It's probably going to dodge the R rating in favor of reaching a wider audience. That means the edge and violence will likely be tempered. This is a first film for the director -- whose previous work seems to be limited to commercials. The "star" is Kristen Stewart of Twilight infamy, whose one-size-fits-all acting style is best reserved for angst-y teenager roles not total bad-ass female leads. Finally, the cast isn't as great as it first seems. I'm guessing the dwarves won't see the amount of screen time that their sheer awesomeness (on paper) deserves, Theron hasn't turned in a good performance since 2003, and despite seeming to be born to play dreamy, burly characters, Hemsworth was actually the fourth choice for "the Huntsman" because Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen, and Hugh Jackman all turned the role down.
The Verdict: I always want fantasy films to be good. I harbor this hope because I'm worried that if enough fantasy films bomb in a row, producers will abandon making them for 5-10 years. That being said, I expect this film to be a huge Nay, like sub-35% on rottentomatoes nay, but if it gets good reviews I'll probably be the first in line for the midnight showing.
Please feel free to agree/disagree/leave predictions in the comments.
I'm going Nay. This movie is looking to add a "fresh" spin on an old story with poor casting in the lead parts. There's a good reason that several actors turned down the male lead; they didn't want to act opposite a mannequin. Anyone remember "King Arthur"? This is like it's shitty sequel.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Nay. Aside from the fact that Kristen Stewart is in it at all, she also looks nothing like the description of her character in the trailer - "hair black as night, lips red as blood, skin white as snow". That's just plain poor detail work.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in defense of King Arthur (which was horrible), Entertainment Weekly ran a really interesting article talking about how Disney decided to completely change the target audience half-way through filming. The director had to severely cut a real epic-style version for the PG-13 Disney wanted.