*Spoilers ahead*

“Snow White” hit theaters on March 21 and has already received its fair share of critics. I was optimistic about Disney reimagining a classic movie in live action, but I found the movie lacking in multiple areas.

One very jarring thing about this movie is its use of CGI (computer-generated imagery). The opening scene featuring the song “Good Things Grow” caught me off guard because the background characters looked very off, almost like AI-generated videos that look like moving pictures. I was unsure to what extent CGI was used in this scene, but it took my eyes a while to adjust to the look of the movie. Had the movie continued to look like an AI moving picture, I might have had to walk out of the theater.

Of course, this is not the only use of CGI in the movie. Despite being a live action remake of “Snow White,” Disney chose to use CGI for the seven dwarves rather than human actors. I understand the criticism about this; however, I think that the CGI serves the fantasy element of the story. I thought about it like this: in this story, there is a princess who talks to wildlife and who gets poisoned by an apple. It makes sense for the dwarves to be CGI because there is so much CGI around them already. On top of that, the voice actors for the dwarves were very funny and one of the highlights of the movie for me. 

One of the best changes this movie made was changing the love interest from a prince to a bandit named Jonathan, who was played by Andrew Burnap. In the original cartoon, the relationship between the prince and Snow White felt less like true love and more like the damsel in distress cliche that is common in fiction. In this remake, they spend a significant amount of time trying to flesh out their relationship and make it more meaningful. This makes the “true love’s first kiss” at the end mean more to a viewer. Burnap also has some standout moments of his own in the movie outside of his scenes with Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White. His escaping the Evil Queen’s dungeon with the Huntsman (Ansu Kabia) is one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

This movie does improve the pacing of the original cartoon, giving Snow White and her family more time to develop deeper character traits. The adaptation poses the question, “What does it mean to be the fairest one of all?” For the queen, it is meant in terms of beauty. The magic mirror says at the end of the movie that Snow White’s beauty is more than skin deep, which makes her truly the fairest of all. This is shown with her kind actions towards the people of her kingdom, as well her ability to be a leader and stand up to the Evil Queen at the end of the movie.

Zegler delivers a standout performance in this movie. The classic songs such as “Whistle While You Work” and the new songs like “Princess Problems” allow Zegler to show her skill as a singer. I will say that I liked Burnap’s performance on “Princess Problems” as well.

The main takeaway I had after seeing this movie is that there was some value to making a live action “Snow White.” Disney didn’t just make this movie live-action; they changed significant parts of the plot while keeping the ending the same. I think that the storyline was great, but the acting and CGI hold this movie back significantly. However, if you are a fan of great music and classic Disney films, then this movie should satisfy that craving.

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