Disney has had the last laugh for its live-action remake of the studio’s first-ever animated feature, Snow White, is perhaps surprisingly one of its strongest and most worthwhile ‘reimaginings’ to date.
Despite the ardent wishes of a vocal section of the online community, who have kept up fresh waves of backlash against the film since 2001, Snow White arrives in cinemas as a movie carefully tailored and tweaked to better suit a modern audience – but without losing fundamental parts of its identity as a traditional fairy tale.
Rachel Zegler’s Snow White is still the fairest of them all, but in 2025 this is more about her attitude and kindness as a princess, raised to lead her kingdom, than her looks.
There’s also still a poisoned apple, a magic mirror on the wall, an Evil Queen (Gal Gadot) who transforms into a hag, a magical slumber and – for better or worse – seven CGI dwarfs.
West Side Story star Zegler once again proves herself an enchanting talent with a voice to match, carefully avoiding falling into twee territory as the original Disney princess.
She also beautifully showcases musical duo Pasek and Paul’s new songs for the movie (even if Good Things Grow is rather too foot-stompingly Greatest Showman for this setting).
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Just like Halle Bailey before her in The Little Mermaid, Zegler’s performance should silence those critics (to put it kindly) who saw her casting as a diversity hire and took issue with a Latina performer portraying a character with the name Snow White.
She carries the film, but credit should also be given to screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson for a well-judged refresh of Disney’s 88-year-old source material, as well as the original Brothers Grimm fairy tale. With the original’s swift run-time of 83 minutes too, there’s space for this to grow to 109 minutes without too much unnecessary ornamentation.
The biggest change comes in the form of Andrew Burnap’s Jonathan, replacing the 1937 Snow White’s officially nameless prince that Snow wishes over the well will ‘someday come’ to sweep her off to his castle (there’s none of that sighing and swooning here).
Instead, Jonathan is a charming bandit, slightly shamelessly ripped from the pages of Disney’s Tangled and Flynn Rider – but as one of their most engaging male fairy tale leads, I won’t quibble. He comes complete with a band of followers – erroneously reported as the ‘magical creatures’ replacing the dwarfs – who dwell in the woods and are loyal to Snow’s father.
Gadot is clearly enjoying herself in the role of an iconic camp villain, obsessed with her own looks, hoarding power and the durability of gemstones; whoever said baddies really need complicated motives?
While her song All is Fair is not the musical highlight of the film, it’s certainly gleeful and faintly silly in the way these things sort of should be – but Zegler overshadows everything but her perfectly arched brow as a performer.
As was predicted by the trailer however, and the biggest roadblock for the remake in terms of societal progress, Snow White’s major letdown is its portrayal of the (used-to-be titular) seven dwarfs in hyper-realistic CGI, despite them bearing more resemblance to cartoons than anything else.
They’re an eyesore in a film that otherwise enjoys revelling in the charming setting of their cottage, overrun with both flowers and appropriately helpful and fluffy woodland creatures.
Some actors with dwarfism have also complained Disney deprived them of job opportunities – although it should be noted that Martin Klebba voices Grumpy.
In terms of magic over media frenzy – the only metric that really matters when it comes to a family film after all – Disney’s Snow White is up there alongside Cinderella and The Jungle Book in terms of quality and personality.
The studio’s frustratingly repetitive reliance on remakes is also a pet peeve of mine, so the fact that years into this regurgitating approach they still have the ability to exceed expectations should keep fans happy.
And hopefully Snow White serves as a timely reminder to not judge a book by its cover, a princess by her skin tone – or a film before you’ve actually seen it.
Snow White is released in cinemas on Friday, March 21.
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