Snow White Review

Evan D.

Rachel Zegler in Snow White (2025)

We are well beyond the point where it would be reasonable to expect much from a live action adaptation of a classic piece of Disney animation. Dozens of these glorified cash grabs have been dished out over the last decade and exactly zero of them have been good enough to justify their own creation, let alone build on the original stories. And those were the easy ones; Aladdin, Mulan, The Little Mermaid. These were the slam dunks and each ended up an air ball. Adapting Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came with layers of trouble, given acceptable norms for audiences nearly a century apart. Snow White (2025) tries its very best to update  the dated source material and ends up a disaster anyways. 

​Obviously a helpless damsel wishing in a well for a prince to come save her is an archetype that served Disney well in the 30’s, but also one that is best left in the past. And thats before even getting into the band of woodland dwarves — draped in matching frocks and layers of ableist stereotype — that befriend her along the way. Understanding that a shot for shot remake wouldn’t work here, the new Snow White positions its titular character (Rachel Zegler) as a champion for the most beleaguered of her kingdom’s subjects. Her fairness references not just her beauty but also her moral compass. When the wicked Queen (a truly wretched Gal Gadot) learns that Snow White’s fairness surpasses her own, the young princess is driven from the castle and takes up with a group of magical dwarfs in the forest. 

While that basic contour sounds similar to Disney’s first animated feature film, a lot has changed from the story Walt brought to screens in 1937. This time the dwarfs are not the only group of seven that Snow White comes across. On her quest through the woods she befriends a group of seven bandits who fight in the name of her father, the deceased king. Rather than an anonymous prince, her love interest is the leader of these noble bandits (Andrew Burnap.) The film positions Zegler’s White as a fighter, a far cry from the more matronly version of the animation. While the 1937 original did have a few classic songs, this new take is a full blown musical. Aside from the deep problems that remain, Disney did make a genuine effort to modernize a tremendously outdated film. 

As such, there is conflict in criticizing that effort. Snow White does have its heart in the right place, at least as much as any outright cash grab from a mega corporation can (which is to say, not much.) Ultimately, the problem is that the movie stinks. For all that work modernizing a film older than most people on Earth, each renewed element falls completely flat. 

Turning Snow White into a true musical is not a terrible idea in concept. The original had a handful of enduring songs, but calling it a musical would be a stretch. Enter the songwriting team behind La La Land and The Greatest Showman, ar Ed another half dozen numbers, none of which can hold a candle to either of the returning songs from the original film. Zegler is a magnetic performer and she shines through ‘Whistle While You Work’ and her tremendous voice elevates even the more mediocre new numbers she is assigned. The less said about Gadot’s singing the better. Still, its hard not to think that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on these abominable remakes couldn’t be better used developing the technology to revive Howard Ashman, the last man who was able to write truly transcendent songs for Disney films. 

Let’s talk a little more about the actors at the heart of Snow White. I have less than zero time for the artificial blowback about casting a Latina as the title character. The movie invents some convenient excuse for her name and beyond that just lets Zegler go. She’s fine. Her voice carries even the most forgettable songs while  the rest of her scenes are clearly set in front of green screens and acted against tennis balls. Praise for the performance would be too much but it cant have been an easy task. By contrast her costar it just dreadful. Despite the fact that Gal Gadot cannot carry a note, she is given a marquee song that ends up as one of the worst sequences to the entire film. Every reaction she gives is so forced, not a moment she is on screen feels natural. The Evil Queen is one of the iconic villains of cinema, here she is painful to watch.

Ultimately, the issues with Snow White run much deeper than the songwriting and performances. This version of White is a warrior for justice but nothing in the early exposition of this film builds her character into that. She feels, through no fault of Zegler’s charming performance, like little more than the outline of a person. Even the idea of a fair and just in a kingdom is conceptually oxymoronic.

This brings us neatly to the dwarfs. Years ago, Peter Dinklage rightly questioned the place of characters that could fairly be described as demeaning in a modern Disney film. The solution the studio landed on was to forgo live actors and instead cast them as uncanny CGI monstrosities with vague magical powers. Not sure who was placated by this choice but the dwarf characters being sidelined does little to help or harm the film. 

What does it say that every attempt to modernize the first Disney classic ends in folly? A long-standing complaint of this site and accompanying podcast has been that these live action remakes are nothing more than carbon copies of their original source material. Tracing the outlines without any of the depth that made their muses timeless. That Snow White sets out on its own path and still falls woefully short should be instructive. These films have no reason to exist, even when updated. Studios and theaters don’t program anything else for children, but it’s hard to argue those kids wouldn’t be better served by just watching the animated originals. Without exception each and every one of those animations was made with more care than these hamfisted remakes. 

All this said, a part of me does appreciate that Snow White attempts to correct for the biases and stereotypes of 1930s America. What this film makes clear is that trying to make a modern version of a beloved classic is not enough. People love Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because, even now, the movie is a gorgeous piece of art. You can go on Disney+ right now fire up that film and see the painstaking detail that made the movie beloved and won it an honorary Oscar. The 1937 film was clearly a labor of love while this new version could never be confused for anything other than a craven cash grab. For all Rachel Zegler pours into her character, her Snow White is never allowed to be more than a half-assed attempt to absorb today’s kids into the Disney ecosystem. 

Snow White is not the worst of Disney’s live action remakes but it is incredibly illustrative of their inherent problems. With anyone else playing the Evil Queen this misfire might have even been passable. It still would not have absolved the film nor the studio from a tremendously ill advised endeavor. My hope is that Disney, once a pinnacle of artistry in filmmaking, can once again find value in original storytelling. I do not have much confidence in this happening. If Snow White is the best we can expect from the once hallowed studio, then we should not expect much. 3/10