Snow White (2025), the new live-action remake of Disney’s historic, first animated feature film, has sparked controversy since its inception. It has been over a decade since Brad Bird’s ambitiously messy Tomorrowland (2015) failed at the box office. In the aftermath, Walt Disney Pictures infamously swerved away from greenlighting the occasional original blockbuster. Woefully, the studio has instead committed full-time to adapting its prestigious animation catalog into expensive, crowd-pleasing live-action remakes. Disney’s latest tentpole movie strategy has, for the most part, been very lucrative: Alice in Wonderland (2010), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Aladdin (2019), and The Lion King (2019) all individually grossed over $1 billion worldwide.
Occasional flops like Mulan (2020) and Dumbo (2019), unfavorable straight-to-streaming releases like Pinnochio (2022) and Lady and the Tramp (2019), or the underwhelming box office performance of The Little Mermaid (2023) could imply some burnout with general audiences. However, the jury is still out on whether or not moviegoers are tired of re-heated IP. Around every corner of the internet, there is a festering anger towards these live-action reimaginings. Though there are plenty of good faith skeptics rightfully criticizing Disney’s creative bankruptcy, there also exists a worrying amount of backlash coming from anonymous racists and trolls against the diversification of Disney’s brand.
The cycle repeats itself: a young actor of color is cast in a project under the massive Disney umbrella (something that appears to be the opportunity of a lifetime) and then is exposed to near-endless waves of online racism and harassment. All while the spineless corporate powers do little or nothing in fear of alienating right-wing audiences. John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Moses Ingram, Halle Bailey, and more recently, Amandla Stenberg, the list of individuals thrown under the Disney bus goes on. It would be irresponsible to review Snow White without acknowledging how Disney has consistently failed Rachel Zegler and her peers, especially because despite how drab the film is, she still anchors it with a genuine powerhouse performance.
Directed by Marc Webb, best known for (500) Days of Summer (2009) and The Amazing Spider-Man (2014), Snow White (2025) is, as you would expect, a modern reimagining of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Erin Cressida Wilson’s rewrite of a Frankenstein monster of a screenplay chooses to expand the story in mostly predictable ways. Chased out of her kingdom by her stepmother, the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), Princess Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is given shelter and companionship by the seven dwarfs of the enchanted forest. Inspired to free her kingdom from the Evil Queen’s tyranny, Snow White joins a rebel group led by Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) and soon finds her true belonging.
Disregarding the negativity, there is arguably a more interesting case for Snow White (1937) to be retold more than most classics in Disney’s IP vault. Though groundbreaking, the original animated film is light on character, plot, and emotion. It was the first, not necessarily the best. Whether or not that’s something audiences need is a different discussion. Still, there is undoubtedly a lot of potential to flesh out the story and make its titular heroine a more active character. Snow White (2025), more often than not, has its heart in the right place; the problem is that it doesn’t successfully execute any of its oeuvre of half-baked ideas.
Snow White as a “Rebellion Hero” is fun on paper, but the live-action remake doesn’t engage enough with that transformation or mine it for proper character drama; it just expects you to connect the dots. Rachel Zegler (West Side Story, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) manages to inject the movie with an impressive amount of energy nonetheless. Despite all that is working against her, Zegler shines in a way that feels effortless. Her eyes are expressively large to sell you on mediocre emotional beats, and her vocal performance enhances even the clunkiest lyrics (written by The Greatest Showman lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul alongside Jack Feldman of Oliver & Company fame).
Rachel Zegler’s endless charisma convincingly positions Snow White as a strong, pure-of-heart leader even when the script isn’t pulling the same weight. The titular princess simply pops from the screen, especially when Zegler is allowed to put her stamp on the original film’s iconography. The same cannot be said for Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman, Red Notice), who turns in what might be her worst performance to date. Gadot is woefully miscast as the Evil Queen, unable to sell us on the glamor, fierceness, or true camp of a classic Disney villain.
Gal Gadot’s take on the Evil Queen is deeply uncalibrated, either giving us too much or too little energy, fluctuating from scene to scene. Additionally, her villain song, “All is Fair,” is somewhat fun lyrically, yet it feels like it was written for a vocalist of a much higher caliber. Now, Gadot is admittedly facing an uphill battle with the quality of the film’s writing. But as a performer, she completely drowns under the weight of the production. It’s difficult to comprehend what she is adding to Snow White (2025) other than the inevitable reaction videos that will be hilariously clipped from her scenes online.
Aesthetically, Snow White (2025) is disastrous. The styling and costuming are a huge misfire, translating the designs from the original movie too literally in a way that looks appallingly cheap for a blockbuster. The CG critters have their moments, but the rendered backdrops and visual clutter give the film an extremely artificial look that feels nauseating at times. Then there are the dwarfs, who are CG-animated with an uncanny amount of facial detail and exaggerated features that misguidedly feel more offensive than you would imagine it would be to hire actors with dwarfism. Once again, the visuals of these Disney live-action remakes fail to recapture the beauty (or even spookiness, in Snow White’s case) of the source material.
It’s not without its moments; the “Whistle While You Work” musical number and Zegler’s duet with Flynn Ryder-esque Andrew Burnap (Under the Banner of Heaven, WeCrashed) in “Princess Problems” are highlights, for example. However, when considering 2025’s Snow White as a remake of the first Disney Princess movie, it’s more disappointing that it lands completely flat. Disney has little confidence in the remake, going so far as not to invite journalists to the premiere in an attempt at damage control. All this does is protect Gal Gadot from being questioned about her pro-Israel politics and deplatform Rachel Zegler — the confidence in her performance and media presence despite the discourse will prove to be inspiring to many young women.
Unfortunately, if you take away Rachel Zegler, Snow White (2025) doesn’t have much to offer. It’s a clumsy, poorly conceived, and cynical movie underneath her heart-on-sleeve performance. It’s a shame that it has become the center of an internet culture war. Yet, it’s possible to defend the people caught in the crossfire while also criticizing the soullessness of Disney’s factory-line film production, chewing and spitting out promising talent and millions of dollars to fetishize their IP. Zegler has had an unfortunate streak of projects and problematic co-stars, but she’s proven herself to be a beacon of light. Through Snow White, she makes the best of tiresome material and transforms the film into a showcase of her movie star talent.
Disney’s Snow White hits theaters on March 21!
Release Date: March 21, 2025.
Directed by Marc Webb.
Screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson.
Based on Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Ted Sears, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd, Merrill De Maris, Dorothy Ann Blank, & Webb Smith, the Snow White fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm.
Produced by Marc Platt & Jared LeBoff.
Executive Producer: Callum McDougall.
Main Cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap, Ansu Kabia, Patrick Page, Emilia Faucher, Olivia Verrall, Hadley Fraser, Lorena Andrea, Andrew Barth Feldman, Tituss Burgess, Martin Klebba, Jason Kravits, George Salazar, Jeremy Swift, Andy Grotelueschen, George Appleby, Colin Michael Carmichael, Samuel Baxter, Jimmy Johnston, Dujonna Gift, Idriss Kargbo, & Jaih Betote.
Cinematographer: Mandy Walker.
Composers: Jeff Morrow (score), Larry Morey and Frank Churchill (original songs), Pasek and Paul (new songs).
Production Companies: Walt Disney Pictures & Marc Platt Productions.
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
Runtime: 109 minutes.
Rated PG.
