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

Snow White and The Huntsman - Retelling of a Classic Fairy Tale

I purposely watched this movie before I watch the prequel The Huntsman: Winter's War which is playing in the theater so as to understand the story. This movie was adapted from the fairy tale "Snow White" which was part of the compilation of folklores by German brothers called "the brothers Grimm". They have made popular folklores such as Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel and many others which were also adapted few times into movies.

Anyway, this movie focused the story on the princess Snow White, born to Queen Eleanor from Kingdom of Tabor who wished to have a daughter as white as snow and lips as red as blood. When Snow White was still a young child, she befriended with William, the son of Duke Hammond. Later Queen Eleanor fell sick and passed away, leaving young Snow White and her father, King Magnus.

When the army of dark forces wanted to attack the kingdom, King Magnus and his armies fought them and managed to save their prisoner Ravenna (played by Charlize Theron - Hancock, Mad Max: Fury Road and many others). Enchanted by her beauty, the king immediately asked her for marriage. During their wedding night, Ravenna revealed herself as a sorceress and killed the king while releasing the kingdom's gates for her dark armies (led by her brother Finn) to come in. Ravenna took over as queen and ordered her army to kill all the guards while imprisoning Snow White. Ravenna also asked the magic mirror who was the fairest in the country & she would get her satisfying answer that it was her. Meanwhile, the kingdom also became ruined and the land almost died since Ravenna became queen.

Years later, when Queen Ravenna asked the magic mirror again, she was informed that Snow White (played by Kristen Stewart: Panic Room, Twilight series etc) has become an adult and Ravenna was no longer the fairest of them all. Knowing this, Ravenna instructed his brother Finn to bring Snow White's heart to her. All this time, Ravenna was able to maintain her youth and looks by absorbing the life out of young women.

Snow White managed to escape from the prison and ran to the Dark Forest. This was found out by one of the army of Duke Hammond who informed the Duke and his son William (who was also an adult now, played by Sam Claflin - The Hunger Games series). Having this knowledge, William who felt guilty for leaving Snow White behind during the invasion of Ravenna, decided to assist Snow White.

Meanwhile, since Ravenna's magic/power could not work in the dark forest, she asked Finn to assign someone to capture Snow White. Finn was able to locate a drunk Huntsman named Eric (Chris Hemsworth - Thor, Blackhat etc) who had ever gone and came back from the dark forest. Eric, at first rejected Ravenna's demand, but later he was tempted by the possibility of Ravenna raising his dead wife.

Using his experience, Eric was able to capture Snow White easily. But convinced by her offering for gold and also disappointed with Finn's statement that Ravenna would never be able to help Eric's wife return to the living, Eric changed his mind and decided to help Snow White instead.

Now being hunted by Finn and his thugs, Snow White and Eric must find the way to go to Duke Hammond's mansion and seek his help to return the kingdom to its rightful leader and defeat Ravenna with the help from the dwarfs whom they met during their journey.

So can Snow White and the Huntsman complete their task to defeat the evil queen Ravenna? Can the country be returned to safety from the disaster brought by Ravenna? You can find them out by watching the movie till completion.

To tell you the truth I did not have a good time watching this movie. It felt more like an obligation rather than for enjoyment since I do not like to watch a sequel/prequel without watching the preceeding movie. In addition, the movie itself lacked something that interest me. The action sequence was a little bit ordinary, though the special effects of the dark armies, or the change of shape by magic mirror & Ravenna were good. The twists that they wanted to make for such movie were not really good. Not to mention Kristen Stewart looks expressionless all the time and did not look believable as Snow White.

Anyway, if you want to see different interpretation of this kind of fairy tale, I think Maleficent is much much better. If you want to watch the prequel, The Huntsman: Winter's War, I believe there is no need for you to watch this movie first. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

The Jungle Book - Disney's cartoon classic came to live

Yaaay, another Disney movie in a year. After Zootopia this is another one from Disney which is a remake & live adaption of Disney's cartoon classic from 1967. There was also another version in 1994 played by Jason Scott Lee where the main character, Mowgli was shown from childhood until adult. But that was not from Walt Disney Pictures.

For the younger generation who has never heard about this title, the movie is adapted from novel written by Rudyard Kipling, an English author in the 19th century who was born in India and stayed there for few years before moving back to England. Which I believe is the reason why most his novels were having Indian background. Well, that's about all I can tell about him. You can learn more about him and his novels from the internet.

The movie itself starts with a small Indian boy named Mowgli who was running together with a black panther named Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley - Gandhi, Schindler's List, Iron Man 3 etc). Mowgli fell from a dead tree and was reminded by Bagheera to always know the signs of dead trees to avoid falling down in future. They both returned to the wolves pack led by Akela (voiced by Giancarlo Esposito) where all the wolves were always reminded about the strength of a pack and always follow the "wolf way". It's also shown that Mowgli was raised by female wolf, Raksha (voiced by Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave, Non-Stop etc) from very young age after Bagheera found Mowgli abandoned in the jungle years back.

One day during a very dry season, the river water became dry and the base became so low that the Peace Rock showed itself. It is the time when all animals in the jungle can drink water from the river together without any animal hunting one another. Mowgli having his first experience of "water truce" came to the river and was looked with curious eyes by other animals. When the very fierce tiger named Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba - Thor, Pacific Rim etc) came, all animals were afraid of him. He found out about Mowgli who was protected by Akela and the wolf pack. Shere Khan held a grudge to men since his face was scarred by a man using "red flower" (the term animals refer to for "fire"). Shere Khan threatened Akela to release Mowgli to him so he could personally kill him. He also reminded the wolf pack that the dry season could not last forever and the truce would be lifted in the near future.

When the rainy season finally came, the wolf pack was divisive with groups that wanted to protect Mowgli (especially Raksha who considered herself as Mowgli's mother) and the rest that feared Shere Khan. Knowing this, Mowgli decided that he should leave the pack. Bagheera and Akela agreed that going back to the men village would be better for Mowgli as they can protect him from Shere Khan. Bagheera would accompany Mowgli during this trip.

After leaving the pack and during their journey, Shere Khan managed to catch up with Bagheera and Mowgli. They got separated during this chase and Mowgli was told to go to a place where Bagheera would meet him. In this location, Mowgli met with Kaa, a huge phyton snake (voiced by Scarlett Johansson - Lost In Translation, Lucy, and many Marvel's comic book adaptation). It was also revealed by Kaa what actually happened to Mowgli and why he was left in the jungle by himself.

Mowgli who was little bit hypnotized by Kaa fell to sleep and was awaken in a cave where a huge bear named Baloo (voiced by none other than Bill Murray) said he had saved Mowgli and in return, he had to help Baloo gather honey for Baloo's stock during winter. Using his tricks, Mowgli managed to help Baloo gather honey. They also became very good friends until Bagheera came and reminded Mowgli to return to the men village but Mowgli and Baloo disagree.

On the other hand, Shere Khan came to wolf pack's place and was furious that the pack let Mowgli leave. He threatened the wolf pack and demanded all animals to spread the news that until Mowgli comes back, the wolf's spot will be his. 

Baloo who finally found out that it was Shere Khan who was trying to catch Mowgli, finally accepted Bagheera's request to convince Mowgli to return to men village. However, before they can continue the journey, Mowgli was kidnapped by a group of monkeys and was delivered to a hidden top of the mountain palace where their leader, a huge orangutan named King Louie (voiced by Christopher Walken) wanted to ask Mowgli's help to reveal the secret of "red flower".

So can Mowgli escape from King Louie's grip? What will happen to the wolf's pack under threat by Shere Khan? Will Mowgli be able to return to men village? Or would he be forced to encounter Shere Khan?

You can get all the answers after watching this movie. This is one of Disney's movie at its best. I really enjoyed watching this movie with my wife. As usual Disney's movie, there were many touching moments that made her tearful. I was truly amazed with the special effects that made all the animals seemed so alive. The voices filled by the stars were also nice and able to make the animal characters believable, particularly for me is Baloo and Shere Khan. My wife and I also like the newcomer Neel Sethi who played Mowgli. We thought that he really looked like the one in the original cartoon. Oooh there were also songs sung by Baloo and also by King Louie.

So if you are a fan of Disney's movies, you definitely have to watch this one. I think the movie is suitable for younger kids as well as older audiences. You can watch it together with your loved ones, full family or with your friends. I believe this one is another classic.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars