It’s often said that Yankee Stadium is “the house that Ruth built,” a nod to Babe Ruth’s enormous impact on his team. In the same way, Disney—and everything that carries that name—is the house that Snow White built. It’s hard to overstate just how monumental Walt Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was. Not only was it the highest-grossing film of its year, but it also earned more than any movie made up to that point—an astonishing feat for a project mockingly dubbed “Disney’s Folly” during production. Walt’s own wife and business-partner brother tried to talk him out of making it. Thankfully for Disney, he ignored the naysayers.
Now, 88 years later—and 60 years after Walt’s passing—Disney has attempted to recreate that magic with a new live-action remake, Snow White. This marks the 18th such effort, beginning with 1996’s The Jungle Book. The motto for the company lately seems to be, why create new content when you can keep recycling the classics?
At times, this Snow White casts a powerful spell, filling our hearts with moments of pure optimism. One emotional turn is nearly as unforgettable as the devastating opening of Pixar’s Up. Our enchantment carries through right up to the first notes of the iconic Heigh-Ho. From there, however, the ride is as shaky as the dwarfs’ rickety mine cars.
For starters, the dwarfs themselves suffer from the same unsettling, dead-eyed appearance that plagued Disney’s 2004 The Polar Express. Some of the CGI animals aren’t much better. Worse still, there’s almost no meaningful character development between Snow White (Rachel Zegler) and the dwarfs. Their inevitable parting has all the emotional weight of a landlord bidding farewell to a short-term tenant.
Disney clearly put much effort into modernizing Snow White herself, giving her more agency than her 1937 counterpart. But this progress is undone by one glaring inconsistency: the magic mirror apparently didn’t get the memo. In an era where we emphasize that beauty is more than skin deep, why does the mirror still declare that a wicked, murderous, conniving villain is “the fairest of them all” while the actual heroine is just a few doors down? It’s a contradiction that weakens the film’s central message.
Perhaps the biggest shock, though, is the music. Snow White needs a Somewhere Over the Rainbow-style showstopper, but she never gets anything close to it. None of the songs are particularly memorable—including a criminally lackluster, and unnecessarily updated rendition of Heigh-Ho.
Then there’s the miscast male lead, Andrew Burnap, who has zero chemistry with Zegler—or anyone else, for that matter. He has a nice voice, but no worthwhile songs to sing.
That said, the film isn’t without its charms. The opening sequence will undoubtedly bring a few tears, and the production design has moments of real allure. Little girls everywhere are bound to love much—if not all—of it. And in the end, maybe that’s what matters most. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take a bite of this nice, shiny apple.
