THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR (2016) * ½

No one really asked for a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, but we got one anyway.  If anything, it gives Charlize Theron another chance to act vampy.  Too bad her appearances are limited to the beginning and end of the movie.

Like 300:  Rise of an Empire, The Huntsman:  Winter’s War is part prequel and part sequel.  The overlong prologue acts as an origin story of The Huntsman and the rest tells what happened after Snow White vanquished the evil queen played by Theron.  Emily Blunt plays Theron’s sister, who has the power to freeze people who piss her off.  After having her heart broken, she rules over her icy kingdom and tells her followers they can never love… or else she’ll freeze their ass.   Chris Hemsworth once again plays The Huntsman, who is a member of Blunt’s trusted guard.  He tries to keep his relationship with his childhood sweetheart (Jessica Chastain, who deserves better) a secret, but predictably, Blunt finds out about it and drives the two apart.  Years later, the untrusting lovers reunite to bring down the queen (who is now questing to find her sister’s magic mirror) once and for all.

The Huntsman:  Winter’s War is Universal’s attempt to get some of that Frozen money.  It’s based on the same Hans Christian Anderson story, “The Ice Queen” and contains some similar imagery to Frozen (like Blunt’s ice castle).  If the original felt like a fairy tale version of Braveheart with its overstuffed battle sequences, this one seems like a fairy tale X-Men with Blunt playing the Magneto-type villain who uses her powers to right an unspeakable wrong.

I like all the performers involved (including Liam Neeson as the narrator), but the movie itself is a chore to sit through.  As with the first film, the cast is trapped in a jumbled narrative and surrounded by chintzy special effects.  Chastain and Hemsworth seem aware they’re on a sinking ship and keep themselves amused by outdoing each other with their hilariously overdone Scottish accents.  

There is one standout scene when Blunt deceives the two lovers and cleverly drives them apart, along with a few fleeting moments of enjoyable stupidity (like Blunt riding on the back of a domesticated polar bear).  Everything else is thoroughly dull though.  That includes the finale, which feels like something out of a comic book movie with Blunt’s Iceman powers vs. Theron’s half-assed Venom black goop. 

Also, how can The Huntsman: Winter’s War be about an evil queen who has killer freezing powers that has a last-minute change of heart and saves the day in the name of love and her final scene ISN’T a close-up of a single tear running down her cheek and freezing?  WTF?  DO I HAVE TO THINK OF EVERYTHING, HOLLYWOOD? 

AKA:  The Huntsman and the Ice Queen.