This film attempts to give the age old tale some back story while adding more magic and throwing in a lot of CGI action.

If you’re thinking to yourself those sound like the right ingredients for this kind of endeavour, you’d be right. The problem rests with the people involved in making the film. Put simply, they hadn’t the foggiest idea what they were doing.

Starting with inexperienced director Rupert Sanders, whose resume up until now included a handful of overrated shorts and commercials, seemed painfully ill equipped to translate his brooding ideas to film. The question on everyone’s mind after seeing this dismal attempt will inevitably be: who at Universal Pictures thought giving Sanders a whopping $175 million budget was a good investment.

I would have liked to have seen the writers and director elaborating on the backstory of the evil queen, maybe then we would actually care about what was happening to the characters when the drama begins to unfold.

The performances by the primary cast further polluted the film. Kristen Stewart had as much charisma as a rock, even when she was seemingly forcing herself to show more. You’ll also find more chemistry in a kindergarten class than between Stewart and her male co-stars, Chris Hemsworth and Sam Claflin. Shockingly, this wasn’t the worst performance in the film. That shameful title goes to Oscar winning actress Charlize Theron (Monster), whose countless attempts at delivering child-like temper tantrums were painful to sit through.

The only thing worth mentioning were the enchanting seven dwarfs, who were fully grown actors convincingly shrunk down to miniature size.

Bottom Line: This big budget movie has nothing to offer but big time disappointment. Save your money and watch paint dry – Far more entertaining.

Grade D

Runtime: 127 minutes
IMAX: No
3D: No