Poor Grimm brothers can’t get a break from Hollywood, at least not since two “Snow White” movies were released this year. The first one, “Mirror Mirror”, was pure garbage. Now “Snow White and the Huntsman” is here. So how bad is it? Not that bad to be honest, uneven to be sure and terribly slow at times, but strengthened by the presence of Charlize Theron, who rises above the script as the evil Queen Ravenna. Judging by the evidence, it isn’t easy making a good movie based on a beloved book these days. “Mirror Mirror” was proof of that. “Snow White” on the other hand, starts out promisingly enough, as we meet Ravenna (Theron, looking good) the woman who bewitches a widowed king into marrying her a day after meeting her. On their wedding night, she kills him and throws his young daughter Snow White into a dungeon. You know the drill. Snow (Stewart) escapes a few years later and vows to take back the Kingdom with the help of a handsome huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, with long hair and badass attitude left over from “Thor” and “The Avengers”), and seven dwarves (played by Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost and Toby Jones- none of them real dwarves by the way). But halfway through the movie, which runs close to two hours, my mind started to wander. Instead of being pulled into this world, I felt myself drifting away from it. Another problem with a film that uses CGI as a substitute for good writing is that virtually every picture that comes along nowadays has impressive visual effects; this has leveled the playing field, to say the least.  Director Rupert Sanders can only do so much with the script he was given, and the same is true of the talented actors (except for Stewart who looks clueless as usual). Without full-blooded characters to drive the story, “Snow White and the Huntsman” is just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Worse, the  movie asks us to believe that Kirsten Stewart can outclass Charlize Theron in the art of beauty. Ha! Not on my watch, hunny. Underneath the fancy CGIs and pretty actors, all that’s missing in “Snow White and the Huntsman” is a sense that all the running, jumping, climbing and fighting is leading to something. Sadly, it doesn’t. The movie is simply content to skim the surface. Damn shame if you ask me.

Rating: 2/4