Courtesy of Disney

Disney’s Snow White hit theaters on March 21, 2025, marking one of the most underwhelming Disney releases ever.

On March 21, 2025, Disney released their newest live-action remake, Snow White. The odds that you have gone through the last year or two without hearing some not-great things about this film are slim to none. Though I don’t believe this movie was anything revolutionary, it does seem that the bad press leading up to the release has overshadowed the true potential that this revised version had.

Though Disney has made edits to their original tales in these remakes, never has one been changed this drastically. At the same time, it wasn’t quite as drastic as actresses Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot made it seem during interviews. They claimed that the two biggest alterations were that Snow White wouldn’t be saved by the prince and that she wouldn’t be dreaming of true love which was one of the staples of the 1937 movie. Though at the surface level, these are relatively true statements, they are also misleading. Snow White was still awoken from her sleep by “true love’s kiss,” just not by Prince Florian but rather by a bandit named Jonathan. Similarly, though love wasn’t her main dream, the movie still had its fair share of romance.

Though the movie wasn’t all bad, there was one sequence that had me thoroughly puzzled. This is when Snow White flees from the huntsman after the Evil Queen’s first attempt on her life. It was extremely dramatized, and though not all that different from the animated movie, it didn’t really work with the cinematic style of the rest of the film. It had odd zooms and extreme special effects, and it honestly just disrupted the flow of the story. This wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if the rest of the movie was as true to the prior cartoon, but seeing as it wasn’t, it felt as though the creators were making a desperate attempt to make up for their deviations from the older version. It could also be argued that this sequence didn’t really fit in with the 1937 movie either, but if they were already making so many changes to the plot, why not repair this error in the newer film?

One of the highlights of this film for me was the music. Alongside songs like “Whistle While You Work” and “Heigh-Ho,” which have been classics since their first debut, there were a couple of originals that really stood out to me. For one, “Waiting on a Wish” was excellently performed by Snow White herself, Rachel Zegler. While I do agree with some of the backlash stating that this ballad wasn’t really the stereotypical Snow White style, I thought that it truly did fit in with the Snow White that Zegler established for herself. I also really enjoyed the Broadway quality of the song “Princess Problems,” performed by Andrew Burnap, and the romantic duet “A Hand Meets A Hand,” sung by both Zegler and Burnap. It can’t be denied that Zegler has an incredible voice, but she also seems to possess the power to have instant chemistry with everyone she sings with. On the other hand, the primary villain song, “All Is Fair,” really missed the mark. Apart from the fact that I just didn’t really connect with the song, let’s just say that Gadot would not be my first choice for any future musical production.

I, for one, had no issue with the changes to the “prince” character. I enjoyed the deeper look we got into their relationship as opposed to the just over two minutes of screen time he had in the animated film. It made the love story more believable and authentic. Also, the switch from prince to bandit made Burnap’s character more of a Flynn Rider from Tangled archetype, which brought so much depth to the story that it was lacking before.

Most of the acting was respectable; Zegler’s portrayal of a princess was a little overly cartoonish for my taste, but seeing as the movie is mainly for children, I don’t think that was necessarily a problem. The voice actors of The 7 Dwarves were made up of some prominent Broadway performers, including Andrew Barth Feldman and Tituss Burgess, which I thought was a nice touch. My main complaint when it comes to casting, however, once again comes down to the Evil Queen portrayed by Gadot. I personally don’t believe she’s a very good actress, and I think this really brought down the overall quality of the film, which was quite disappointing.

Overall, I believe that this film is worth the watch, even if it’s not worth the rewatch. It’s an enjoyable adventure but is by far the weakest of Disney’s live-action remakes to date.