Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The Huntsman: Winter's War

This movie is a little bit different than the usual prequel or sequel, because it is a prequel AND a sequel to the "Snow White and the Huntsman" movie which I have reviewed earlier. Maybe it will be clearer once I give more info on this film.

Yesterday, I got one of those rare moments when the work was not as hectic as usual and I could leave home earlier. And in an even rarer moment, my wife happened to be staying home too. So, both of us went to the nearest theater from our home (5 minutes walk) and watched this movie at 7.30 PM. Surprisingly, there were quite a lot people watching in this studio, especially since the theater was playing the film in 2 studios.

Anyway, let's get on to the movie. It started with the scene of Ravenna the evil queen from the original movie (played by Charlize Theron), who already got her habit of killing kings to dominate the kingdom. In this movie though, it was shown that she has a younger sister named Freya (played by Emily Blunt - Edge of Tomorrow, The Devil Wears Prada etc). Freya was a more gentle character than her scheming sister, but Ravenna believed that Freya should also have a magic power just like her, only she was not confident enough.

Freya who was in love with a duke, apparently has already conceived a baby with him. The duke promised to leave his kingdom and get married with Freya and bring up their daughter. However, during the night when they were supposed to meet, the room where Freya's baby was sleeping caught on fire. Her baby was found burnt and the duke was apologizing to Freya for setting up the fire. Felt heart broken, Freya screamed and a breath of ice came from her body freezing the duke and killed him instantly. Since that moment, Freya was able to make ice from her touches. She also left Ravenna to the north and seek her own kingdom.

While conquering the northern kingdoms, she had decided to gather the children in those kingdoms and made them her own special army called "the Huntsman". Two of her first generation of huntsman were Eric and Sara who seemed to be having crushes. There was also Tull, one of her would be leader. Eric's greatest ability was using two small axes, while Sara was best in archery. There was even a saying that "Sara never missed". When they all grew up, the huntsman would be Freya's weapon to conquer even more kingdoms.

Later we would find out that Eric (played by Chris Hemsworth) and Sara (played by Jessica Chastain - Interstellar, The Martian) were really in love. Sara also made Eric her husband by giving him her necklace given by her mom. They decided to run away and leave the ice kingdom for good. However, during their escape attempt, they were caught by other huntsman. Freya told them they can only leave if they were able to fight all the huntsman. Eric and Sara were surrounded and fought their way off. When they seemed to be winning, Freya made an ice wall between the two of them. Eric could only saw behind the ice wall how Sara was killed by Tull. Feeling destroyed and helpless, Eric was knocked on the head and later thrown to the river.

The story would then jump 7 years later. This is the part where it became interesting as during these 7 years were the period when Eric would help Snow White regain the kingdom in the south. So the story later actually become the sequel of the original movie. Hence the movie becomes a prequel and a sequel altogether.

Moving back to the film, William (Snow White's husband), came to seek Eric's help to re-collect the magic mirror which was stolen and had actually possessed dark magic. With the help of Nion (1 of the dwarves from the original movie, played by Nick Frost - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz etc) and his half brother Gryff, Eric agreed to look for the magic mirror as he was worried if it got to the hands of Freya.

So Eric, Nion and Gryff would embark in a journey to get the magic mirror with the help from other female dwarves (Doreena and Bromwyn) and an unexpected company. The journey itself was quite fun as the all the characters were quite funny and their chemistry were quite alive. There would also be lots of twists and surprises till the end. Though many people might say they could already guessed them.
Then can the group collect back the magic mirror from the thief? What secret did the mirror hold? Would Freya be catching up with them and acquire the magic mirror? Find them out by watching this to finish.

I actually rather enjoyed the movie. It was surprisingly fun to watch the group's little fights that made them close to each other. I also think that Eric here is better to watch than from the original movie. ANDDD, the special effects I believe were great. The transformation of the magic mirror, and the ice creation by Freya among them.

If you like this kind of adventure, fantasy movie with little fairy tale in the background, then you can watch this for fun. Do not let the ice queen character fool you. This is definitely not Elsa from Frozen. And I also believe this is no longer a fairy tale adaption. I am not too sure what people actually expected from this movie as I heard some people thrash this one. Though I personally think people can just enjoy the fun part and the special effects.

Ooh 1 more thing, if you want to understand the continuity of the film between the 7 years before and after the snow white story, perhaps it would be better if you watch "Snow White and the Huntsman" first. But if you do not really care, you can skip that one and just watch this as it was hinted a little in the background by the narration and I also feel that one is not really worth to watch.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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