In 1937, Walt Disney Productions made the first animated feature film ever produced in the United States. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs won critics and audiences over and paved the way for Disney to continue making magic happen for decades. Their movies became a formative part of our childhoods for generations. Cut to 2025, where Disney is now the leader of a recent trend of sequels and live-action remakes of their animated classics. Because in an increasingly unpredictable Hollywood landscape, they’ve found their comfort in IP, using our nostalgia to create halfhearted money-makers: hence, Snow White.
It’s a bold move to remake any classic movie, but at this point, it seems like Disney will not stop until they have squeezed every bit of their greatest films dry of all their worth. Remaking the first cel-animated feature film into live-action? It can be seen as a risk-averse move, but honestly, the audacity to make something like this is commendable. That original movie is so perfect that it’s a hard act to follow, but here we are, with yet another remake that follows a similar pattern as the others. When it works, it works well. They update and expand the story to reflect modern values. But when it doesn’t work, it will make you want nothing more than to just watch the original.
Like the original, we begin with a storybook opening up and a voice telling us how the story of a fair maiden named Snow White (Rachel Zegler) grew up. This film does a wonderful job of expanding on the story we’re familiar with. Of course, we’ve gotten dozens of other live-action movies that have interpreted the Brothers Grimm’s iconic story. But this is the one that has the most elements from the 1937 Disney film while elaborating on Snow White’s relationship with her birth parents and how she ended up as the stepdaughter of a beautiful evil queen (Gal Gadot).
The film features a few new songs. It opens with a great song called “Good Things Grow,” which I quickly realized was only as great as it is because of how similar it sounds to “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman soundtrack. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are two of the most talented songwriters in Hollywood, but they have a tendency to self-plagiarize, and this song does feel like an imitation of work we’ve heard from them previously. They also give Snow White an “I Want” song named “Waiting on a Wish,” another solid song. Pasek & Paul’s work with lyricist Jack Feldman on this film ends up giving us some of the best original songs of any live-action Disney remake (whatever we got in The Little Mermaid was not it).
Now, let’s talk about what many of us were curious about: Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. Zegler has had a career young actresses can only dream of: from a classic musical directed by Steven Spielberg to a DC superhero movie to a Hunger Games film to an A24 comedy, she’s done an incredible amount of work. Whoever her agent is, they deserve a raise. But is she good for the character of Snow White? Sometimes. She has a few moments where she has the right energy and a few moments where her acting is very mannered, almost as if everything she’s doing is calculated enough to a point where it feels like a performance.
If you’re not watching too closely, Zegler has a perfect Disney princess energy. Her singing voice, which she has gotten to use a lot of in her career, is splendid. She has one of the best voices in Hollywood, and she makes full use of it in this film. Because of a combination of her appearance, performance, and costume, it can sometimes feel less like we’re watching Snow White and more like someone dressed in a Snow White costume for Halloween.
Now, let’s talk about Gal Gadot. She doesn’t have a reputation for being the most talented of thespians. Sure, she’s had her fair share of high-profile roles, mainly with Wonder Woman and the Fast & Furious movies. But every few months, some terrible line reading of hers goes viral on Twitter, and the cultural zeitgeist goes towards her inability. This is a role where she could have proved everyone wrong. She doesn’t, really. Her performance is campy evil, and she’s really trying here. I commend her efforts, but she has some laughable moments. She gets a Disney villain song, but I don’t know why they’d give one to her because a singer, Gadot isn’t.
But I’ll give her credit where credit is due: there’s a scene in this film where the Evil Queen transforms herself into a homely elderly woman. Assuming that was Gadot covered in makeup and not some actress they swapped in, that’s some of the best acting of her whole career. She’s phenomenal in that scene because it’s the first time she’s been allowed to transform into something different. She’s not using her looks or voice in this moment, and this is where you can actually see that maybe, just maybe, she’s got some talent.
Here’s another key change Snow White makes. In the original film, the Prince isn’t much of a character. He shows up briefly in the beginning and then at the end to save Snow White. But this film decides to give the male character some development. He’s no longer a prince; rather, he is a local rebel and thief named Jonathan (a great name; he stole it from me, though). Andrew Burnap plays the character well, and much like The Little Mermaid remake, this movie spends more time fleshing out this romance. They’re given time in the second act to connect. Unfortunately, I didn’t see much chemistry between Zegler and Burnap; they felt like two actors instructed to act romantically in a movie, not two people genuinely falling for each other.
Many of Snow White and Jonathan’s scenes take place in a forest during the daytime. Some of these scenes look about as visually interesting as a made-for-TV movie. While there are beautiful sequences throughout this film, the forest scenes look way too boring for a movie of this size. It’s surprising that these two elements, romantic chemistry and powerful cinematography, can be missing from a Marc Webb movie. Webb has previously directed an all-time favorite of mine, 500 Days of Summer, and he is also known for directing the two Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies. All of those films were filled with those, so it’s strange how this movie misses the mark there.
I also want to talk about the decision to make CGI dwarfs instead of casting real little people to play these characters. People of short stature have their roles in Hollywood limited already, so to see these roles be replaced with CGI seems like a misstep. It wouldn’t be as bad if the CGI wasn’t so noticeable whenever they show up, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. It had to have cost millions for Disney to pay for the VFX, motion capture actors, and voice actors. All they really needed were actual little people. Instead, the only little person they cast was Martin Klebba. But what makes it puzzling is they have another supporting character in the film who is played by a little person. It seems like a choice made to hammer home the point that these unsanitary dwarfs who work in mines and live in one house are not an actual representation of little people.
However, it seems unnecessary to do that. Keep in mind this is a fantasy film about a princess who breaks out into song and dance and can communicate with animals. Realism is not the priority, so the worry of the dwarfs being an actual representation of little people seems a bit ridiculous. But even so, the dwarfs are some of the most lovable characters in both this film and the original movie, so if anything, we could have had a movie that introduced us to new faces. We could have had some fan-favorite performances from many actors of short stature, giving them opportunities to keep working in movies and TV, but that’s an opportunity long gone. If you want to see what I just described, you can always watch the 2012 Snow White film Mirror Mirror, starring Lily Collins, Julia Roberts, and a wonderful cast of little people, including Martin Klebba.
The animal animation is good. Disney’s finally figuring out how to keep the animals expressive while retaining some realism in their live-action remakes. Some of the dance choreography works well. “Whistle While You Work” is just as wonderful as ever. Webb’s experience in music videos shines here and there, but everything still pales in comparison to the original, where it seemed like every action the characters and animals took allowed the soundscape to be made of music. This movie doesn’t keep that.
As for Erin Cressida Wilson’s screenplay, there are many good ideas here. It’s slightly funny at times, and even though I wouldn’t change a thing about the original film, it is a wise choice to develop Snow White’s love interest and that romance story. But a few elements feel out of place as well. The movie sets up something surrounding Snow White’s father, which doesn’t lead to anything particularly interesting. The final act is also quite different from the original, and the ending ends up feeling underwhelming. There was the possibility of going bigger and crazier with the climactic finale, but this finale features a dialogue-filled scene that doesn’t leave the impact it thinks it does.
Live-Action Snow White Review: Final Verdict
Overall, is this the worst Disney live-action remake? No. It’s better than Mulan and a tad better than The Little Mermaid. Unlike The Lion King, this movie actually has a few original ideas, and it knows how to take the ingredients we’re familiar with and do something new. Does it succeed at that? Partially. By the end of it, Snow White is not the fairest remake of all.
SCORE: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating each other, making it a wash.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our Snow White review.
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