Over spring break, I decided that I wanted to go watch Disney’s newest live action movie, Snow White. Going into the movie, I tried not to have any preconceived notions even though it was quite hard. This film has been shrouded in controversy since it was announced – from CGI dwarfs to the casting of Snow White herself – but I truly wanted to experience this film with an open mind and an open heart. Something that I however couldn’t let go of, that certainly made me at least a little biased, was the fact that Rachel Zegler is the first Latina to play a Disney princess. As a Latina myself – who has never been able to see herself within Disney princesses – I felt so proud watching Zegler tear down these walls. Even though, I don’t consider this film to be “the first Latina Disney Princess movie” and I know that quite a few people would even disagree with calling Zegler Latina – since she comes from Colombian descent on one side and Polish descent on the other – I still felt very proud to see her on that big screen.
For this review, I want to start with the things that I thought the film did very well. To start, I genuinely enjoyed the changes that were made from the original 1937 film. Zegler was right when she called the movie outdated because it is and I don’t think that the live action would work in 2025 if it was an exact copy of the original. One of these changes that I liked was the fact that Snow White wasn’t sitting around waiting for a prince to save her. Listen, I know that this is also a controversial point of the film, but in all seriousness, I think that the live action romance plot worked better than the original. Snow White isn’t dissing on love or actively avoiding it, it just isn’t her top priority, like it is in the original. Instead her top priority is saving her people from the tyranny of the Evil Queen. In the end, Snow White does still end up in a romantic relationship that is clearly very important to her, so I do think people bashing the movie for its lack of “Someday My Prince Will Come” are just being too picky. At the end of the day, the movie is about how powerful kindness could be and I think that is more important than a princess waiting to be saved by a man.
Another thing I really enjoyed about this film was the whimsical nature. Snow White has always been a very magical film and I absolutely loved that it was not lost in the live action. From the Evil Queen’s enchantress powers to the magical forest that Snow White finds asylum in, this movie is filled with whimsical magic that made it truly feel like a Disney movie. The use of the forest animals was amazing, I loved how they were very vital to Snow White’s survival. They were also just very cute, which was a plus.
If I’m completely honest, I don’t even want to touch the whole dwarfs situation because I don’t really feel like it is my place. Personally, I didn’t hate the CGI dwarfs, I thought they were quite cute and I think that having another non-dwarf character being played by a little person shows that the film didn’t want to exploit little people actors, so that’s that. The most major thing that I had a real issue with was that I did not enjoy Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen. I really wanted the Evil Queen to be played by an actress that is more known for playing sinister characters or someone that simply had a more evil appearance to really sell the whole Evil Queen thing. Gal Gadot did not do this character justice and if there was one thing that I could change about the film, it would be that casting. This was definitely my biggest gripe with the film and I don’t even want to get into the politics of it but I think if you want to point at why the movie is failing, I think you might find it with this casting.
At the end of the day, this was a very adorable film with a very important message that was clearly made for children. I genuinely enjoyed watching the movie and I definitely could see myself rewatching it. This film was so beautiful, both aesthetically and emotionally, and I’m not shy to say that it might be one of the best Disney live action films. I highly recommend that people go watch this movie because it is so much better than what pretentious film bros on TikTok are saying it is.