Walking into the theater for the 2025 Snow White remake starring Rachel Zegler as the title character and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, my expectations weren’t high. Like many people, I had seen all the negative media regarding the film before its release. However, after watching the film, I left with confusion, enjoyment and many opinions.

The controversy

When Disney announced the remake many people questioned if the movie should even be remade in the first place when the story is about a girl whose named Snow White because of the color of her skin and having seven little people whose entire personality is the adjectives they are named after forcing the characters to have very little personality.

The fact that the characters were CGI caused a lot of anger and upset from people saying that it was taking parts from actual actors with Dwarfism. Actor Dylan Postl, among others, openly expressed their disdain for Disney’s choice to use CGI.

In response to the backlash, Disney released a statement explaining they used CGI to avoid stereotypes portrayed in the original film.

Another major issue some people had with the film was the casting of Rachel Zegler (an actor of Colombian descent) as the title character, prompting people online to share racist statements about the actress because of the origin of the character’s name in the original film.

The good

To start, the changes they made to the source material were good overall. The replacement of the prince with a gang of ruffians and their leader was a pleasant addition. This leads the film to have a large ensemble of characters and makes the story grittier and less princessy than the original tale. Having the lead male being someone from the lower class who lives in the woods creates a nice contrast with the huge amounts of royalty included in the film.

One of my favorite parts of this film was all the animals that were done with CGI. Normally, CGI animals can feel creepy and a little fake, which pulls me out of the movie. However, these animals almost feel like a cartoon; they’re adorable and add a huge amount of wonder and magic in this film.

When the Seven Dwarves first appeared, I thought I was gonna hate them. The CGI in the beginning made me feel terrified, and like the people behind the film couldn’t decide if they wanted them to look real or animated. However, as the film went on, the characters kinda grew on me. They started to become endearing, and I found myself loving them by the end of the film.

I also found myself enjoying Rachel Zegler’s performance as Snow White. While I don’t think it’s her best performance ever, I do still think she did a good job with the material she was given. She was spunky and had a good balance between being a sweet princess and being a strong protagonist. Being someone with a huge history in musical theatre, her vocal performance in this film was amazing and left multiple songs stuck in my head long after I left the theater.

The Bad

I don’t have a lot of bad things to say about this film. Overall most of this film I enjoyed or felt very middle of the road about it. I feel like a lot of people forget this is a kids’ film, so yes, it’s a little cheesy and corny at times, but it’s a Disney movie. It’s not supposed to be a hugely emotional, impactful film.

However, one of the worst parts of this film was the performance by Gal Gadot. Every line in this film she delivered felt like it was being read off a cue card. There was no emotion to any of her delivery, and she didn’t even feel like a real person at times. When you have all of these magical creatures and encapsulating performances, Gadot’s performance feels like there was little effort made. Patrick Page, as the magic mirror, gave a better villainous performance as a mirror than Gadot did as the main antagonist of the film.

The other major problem I had with the film was the ending. The storyline builds up for this huge climactic ending when Snow White comes back and faces the queen with all of her guards. Then Snow White looks at all of the guards and tells quick stories of each of the guards’ lives to them. The guards change their allegiance to Snow White and in anger the evil queen walks to the mirror, breaks it and then gets sucked into the abyss behind the mirror and that’s it. The queen dies because Snow White remembers a couple of guards’ names. The ending doesn’t feel satisfying like how an ending should; it just feels lazy and powerless.