The Cold Never Bothered Them Anyway

I was not terribly impressed with 2012’s “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Sure, it was a gorgeous thing to look at. But its core was a mess with problematic messaging about the motivation for its central villain and blandly passive heroine. Also, can’t Snow White be the hero of her own story without a Huntsman to rescue her? (Yes, yes, I know original source material blah blah blah.) Still, I can’t help but be a little more excited for its sequel (and, I think, prequel), “The Huntsman: Winter’s War.” Granted, now the central character is full-on said Huntsman. But, goodness, how they’ve upped their awesome ladies quotient. Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain, oh my!

The movie, once again, looks like a visual smorgasbord. And if the trailer is to be believed, we finally have an action movie where the ladies, instead of the dudes, drive the narrative. Plus, I’m just a sucker for anything that had women kicking ass. And you really can’t resist Charlize vamping it up with regal wickedness once more.

Granted, it does look a tad like, “Frozen: Elsa’s Revenge.” The cold never bothered them, anyway. But, you know what, I’ll let it go for the sake of the potential badassery.

My only other complaint: The snow-white cast. Just like it’s seemingly impossible for The Hollywood Reporter to think of a single actress of color to invite to its award-season roundtable, here is yet another Hollywood film with little to no (I think I saw a few black soldiers in there, maybe) diversity. I find it particularly galling in a fantasy film like this where the entire universe it inhabits is divorced from the restraints of reality. That’s not to say more realistic films get a free pass, but fantasies like this are only accountable to one’s imagination. So then to still cast a predominantly all-white is just a failure of creativity. Get it together, Hollywood. The world has always existed in beautiful Technicolor. Now if only your movies did, too.