Movie Review: The Huntsman: Winters War

My sister is a huge fan of the movie Frozen. Nothing against the movie, but when you watch it over and over again it gets a little on the annoying side. So when I saw this week’s movie had its own version of an ice queen, I was interested to see a different point of view on this character. The Huntsman: Winters War had one bonus to it right away, no "catchy" songs that would get on my nerves after a while.

The movie starts with a narration on how you know the Snow White story from the other movie, Snow White and the Huntsman, but there was a story before. It then goes on to tell us how the story began with the tale of two sisters, Ravenna (played by Charlize Theron) and Freya (played by Emily Blunt). Freya had fallen in love with a man and is carrying his baby happily, until her sister informs her that she knows while playing chess. After the chess game, Freya and the man make a plan on leaving together. On the night of their planned departure, she sees a fire coming from the tower where her child is. She runs up there to find her love having burned her child saying he had no choice. Freya gets sad and angry, giving her the power to freeze everything around her, starting with the man she once loved. 

To get away from the memories and have a kingdom of her own, Freya leaves and goes to the northern country, turning it to a frozen wasteland. She takes children from their homes to her castle where she tells them that they are now free. There is only one rule, they are never to love, as it is a weakness. She calls them her huntsmen and starts their training. We watch as a young boy, Eric, and a young girl, Sara, grow into a well trained man and woman (played by Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain, respectively). They secretly fall in love with each other, however Freya finds out with an owl made from her ice.

The plot and story line of this movie seems to be a little bit all over the place. You think it will be a movie about the war between the sisters, but then you find that it's the people against one of them, but then against both of them and then them against each other. If that sentence seems confusing to you then you understand how watching the movie felt. There was so much back story they were trying to put into it that they could not find a focus. The visuals were stunning though, and I think that made watching the movie a little easier.

The other thing that made the movie easier to watch was Chris Hemsworth's portrayal as the Huntsman. He was relaxed into the character and brought us great chemistry in his interactions with Jessica Chastain. He had good banter with the other characters he traveled with and that made the mixed up story line bearable. The chill in the acting from Emily Blunt, who is usually on point, just made us all cold to her character. Charlize Theron's over acting had me thinking that she was just there for the paycheck and not to make a good movie.

I would rate this movie 7.6/10 based on the good visuals and enjoyable performance by Chris, but the story not making too much sense. I would have made a joke about putting "Let it Go" into the movie, but that song was the part that made Frozen so annoying.