Rachel Zegler as Snow White 

The newborn baby princess was named Snow White. After her mother the Queen died, the King remarried. His new Queen took control of the kingdom when the King failed to return after a battle. She was a vain woman who wanted her Magic Mirror to confirm that she was always the fairest one of all. One day, the Mirror declared that Snow White, who by now had turned from a child to a young lady, was now the fairest. The Queen could not accept it.

This was how the story of Snow White began. It is a tale familiar to almost every child, particularly those who grew up under the spell of Disney animated films. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" (1937) was the very first full-length animated feature film by Walt Disney, the original innovator of adapting fairy tales into animation. With its box office take adjusted for inflation, it is still in the list of the Top Highest-Grossing Animated Films of All Time. 

This new live-action version of Snow White certainly had a very rough start. The controversy started when Latina singer-actress Rachel Zegler was cast in the title role. Purists insisted that Snow White got her name because her skin was "white as snow." It did not help that Zegler also tactlessly called the original film "extremely dated." Rude netizens also made fun of Zegler's appearance in comparison to Gal Gadot's regally beauteous Queen. 

Changes were evident from the very start. The new princess was named Snow White because she was born in a stranded carriage during a snow storm. There was no Prince here, instead we have Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), a rebel who was "loyal to the King," and who lived in the forest with his own band of seven cohorts. After she woke up from true love's kiss, this new Snow White proved to be a progressive princess who changed how the fairy tale ended. 

We hear reinterpretations of its old songs "Heigh-ho" and "Whistle While You Work" by the dwarves. However, there was no more "I'm Wishing," "One Note," and notably "Someday My Prince Will Come" here. Instead, there were a number of new songs all written by the song writing team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. So in case you think you are hearing strains from "The Greatest Showman" songs in them like I did, that is why.

This live-action version looked very good from a technical point of view, with award-worthy art direction, costume designs, and visual effects (generally). The CGI Seven Dwarves were not really as bad as originally imagined, but I can't help seeing familiar faces in them, like Tommy Lee Jones for Grumpy, or Alfred E. Neumann of MAD Magazine in Dopey. The forest animals were very cute furry furballs, as Disney had already perfected in their previous live-actions.

Far from being the biggest liability of this "Snow White," Rachel Zegler was actually one of its saving graces. Her singing voice was so strong and soaring, so breathtaking especially in her showstopping "Wishing on a Wish." 

Andrew Burnap may look like a more generic Jonathan Bailey, but his singing was also very good, particularly in his comical solo "Princess Problems." Their love duet "A Hand for a Hand" had good harmonic blending in its arrangement.

Now Gal Gadot is another matter. There is no arguing her beauty, as she was radiant from her introductory scene. Only very few can pull off the Evil Queen's iconic crown, gowns and cloak like she did. I can even forgive her campy approach to playing evil. However, when it came time for her first solo song number that had mediocre singing and even worse "dancing," if you can call it that. Gadot really betrayed the limits of her acting ability here. 

The word "fair" gets bandied about a lot throughout this film. Of course, the original context was in the Evil Queen's obsession to be the fairest (the most beautiful, or the whitest) of them all. She exemplified this in her solo song "All is Fair" where she declared that "Beauty is power." 

However, for this new progressive Snow White, fair means "equal sharing," and in her anthem "Snow White Returns," she aspired to be "someone fearless, someone fair." 

This review was originally published in the author's blog, “Fred Said.”