Disney’s Snow White Reviews: Grumpy Critics Aren’t Bashful About Sleepy Remake

It’s fair to say that Disney’s live-action Snow White movie has been one of the more controversial remakes. Even before a leaked set photo of the supposed Seven Dwarfs drew online ire in 2023 — a photo that ultimately turned out to be not dwarves, but a Merry Men-type band of rebels led by the not-prince Jonathan (Andrew Burnhap) — there was backlash against the decision to cast a Latina actress in the title role. (“It’s an interesting experience being part of that diaspora in the current climate we live in. But I love being Colombian,” Rachel Zegler recently told Allure when asked about Snow White igniting a culture war.)

And then there was the backlash over comments Zegler made during D23 Expo in 2022. “The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so,” she told Extra. “There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.”

RELATED: Snow White Review: An Underwhelming Trip to an Uncanny Valley

Zegler later told Variety: “She’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.” (In the new film, rather than being named for having “skin white as snow,” the princess “braved a bitter storm of snow.” In her “want” song “Waiting on a Wish,” Zegler’s Snow White sings: “In the shadow the kingdom’s caught in / Somehow, fairness is long forgotten / So will she rise, or bow her head? Will she lead, or just be led? Is she the girl she always said she’d be?”)

So, is Snow White what the internet and social media always said it’d be? Not quite. The consensus among critics seems to be that the live-action adaptation is too inoffensive for the uproar that has surrounded this movie for the past four years. (Most critics agree that the biggest problem with the movie is its “uncanny” CG-animated dwarfs.)

“Snow White’s story is a timeless one and the live-action movie does a worthy job of staying true to the formula, though this fact is both a blessing and a curse in Zegler’s vehicle,” ComicBook critic Evan Valentine writes in a 2.5-star (out of five) review. “There isn’t a lot of meat on the bone here in terms of overall plot, and while there are some changes made to how things progress in the adaptation’s story, said changes don’t elevate what’s on the screen. The added elements feel like little more than window dressing, especially when it comes to the film’s finale, which attempts to invoke a new meaning behind White’s expedition, but ultimately falls short in doing so.”

Disney’s Snow White currently sits at 46% “rotten” on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, below 2019’s Aladdin (57%), 2024’s Mufasa: The Lion King (57%), 2019’s The Lion King (51%), and 2010’s Alice in Wonderland (50%). It’s on par with 2019’s Dumbo (also 46%), above 2019’s Maleficent sequel Mistress of Evil (40%), 2016’s Alice sequel Through the Looking Glass (29%), and 2022’s Pinocchio (the lowest-rated Disney remake at 27%). Read more excerpts from critics’ reviews below.

Rolling Stone: “It’s not the gleeful deconstruction of the template that the original 1937 movie set into stone — be pretty and passive and patient, ladies, and eventually some bro will rescue you — that feels irksome, especially since those notions don’t feel like they carbon-date from the Hoover era so much as the Stone Age. No, what feels irritating about this Snow White is how it pats itself on the back for being so performatively progressive while being content to be safe, generic, and a little lethargic regarding everything else … The whole thing feels so bland and perfunctory to a fault that it’s surprising to think that this was the movie that caused such an uproar for nearly two years and a dozen news cycles. You can feel the strain of trying to appeal to everyone, court both the purists and the pro-modernization contingent, be as inoffensive as possible — and still manage to satisfy next to no one. This Snow White may not be the worst live-action adaptation of an animated touchstone, though it’s a strong contender for the blandest. The movie does earn points as a bedtime story, however, because it will definitely put you to sleep.”

RogerEbert.com: “The Disney movie came out almost 90 years ago, in 1937. Even those who do not consider themselves especially ‘woke’ might be troubled by a heroine who waits to be rescued, singing ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’ as she gazes into the wishing well, merrily keeps house for seven dwarfs, with a mute one named Dopey, and is awakened by a non-consensual kiss from a prince she has never seen. But there is still enormous affection for the original film, and audiences will want its essential elements re-created … Some parts of the film work better than others, but none of it has the sweetness and imagination of the animated feature. This Snow White is not the fairest of them all. It’s just, well, fair.”

The Hollywood Reporter: “None of [the] background noise matters in Marc Webb’s vibrant retelling, from a smart script by Erin Cressida Wilson that reshapes a story about a princess dreaming of her knight in shining armor into one in which she finds the courage to be a leader, capable of following in her noble father’s footsteps. That desire is expressed with passionate feeling in ‘Waiting on a Wish,’ the standout of the new songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. If that sounds like the standard female-empowerment template that’s almost obligatory in contemporary fairy-tale retreads, it more or less is. But the incandescent Zegler sells it with conviction and heart. And there are worse messages to be putting out into the world via family films right now than celebrating the virtues of kindness and fairness over cruel despotism.”

The Guardian: “Here is a pointless new live-action musical version of the Snow White myth, a kind of un-Wicked approach to the story and a merch-enabling money machine. Where other movies are playfully reimagining the backstories of famous villains, this one plays it straight, but with carefully curated revisionist tweaks. These are all too obviously agonising and backlash-second-guessing, but knowing that at some basic level the brand identity has to be kept pristine. This is particularly evident in the costume design, with which the wicked witch gets a pointy dark crown and skull-hugging black balaclava and Snow White is lumbered with a supermarket-retail tweenie outfit with puffy-sleeved shoulders. Those otherwise estimable performers Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot are now forced to go through the motions, and they give the dullest performances of their lives.”

The Wall Street Journal: “Disney’s first Snow White isn’t perfect — the prince is badly underwritten and doesn’t even get a name — but it is, by turns, enchanting, scary and moving. Version 2.0, starring Rachel Zegler in the title role and Gal Gadot as her nefarious stepmother, has been in the works since 2016 and already feels like it’s from a bygone era. After fans seemed grumpy about the rumored storyline and the casting of Ms. Zegler, Disney became bashful about releasing it last March and ordered reshoots to make everyone happy. Unfortunately, the story is so dopey it made me sleepy.”

Variety: “As it turns out, this is one of the better live-action adaptations of a Disney animated feature … The chirpy, vivacious, just-romantic-enough-to-get-by Snow White proves to be an exception to the rule. Directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, 500 Days of Summer), from a script by Erin Cressida Wilson (The Girl on the Train), the film is lighter, more frolicsome, less lead-footed than such clomping live-action Disney remakes as Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo or Mulan.”

Associated Press: “Zegler does a spirited job remaking a classic Disney princess into a more modern woman; when she sings, the movie gets a lift. The last thing that’s wrong with this Snow White is Zegler’s casting. But like scaffolding that’s been left up too long, the strain of renovation shows in Webb’s film, particularly in its awkward handling of Dopey, Sneezy and company. The seven dwarfs, like the fawns and squirrels, are rendered in CGI. You could argue that this acknowledges the artificiality of a dated and offensive trope. But it also gives “Snow White” an uncanny quality, with all human characters but the dwarfs being played by real people. As if to Band-Aid over this, one of the woodsmen is played by an actor of short stature (George Appleby) whose presence seems like yet another atonement, only one for this Snow White, not 1937’s.”

Vulture: “Snow White is not as bad as it could be, while not being anywhere near good? It’s better than, say, Aladdin, which was awful but nevertheless made a literal billion dollars. It’s garishly ugly and padded out with new tunes from Pasek and Paul that are as smooth and unremarkable as river rocks, all of which may or may not matter to its target audience, who could just be basing their decision about whether to see the movie on how unacceptably woke social media has informed them it is. But while the movie itself is devoid of delight, there is something delightful about getting to actually see the thing after the years of culture war skirmishes that have preceded its release like a wrathful red carpet, and discovering it’s about lefty infighting.”

USA Today: “Not only does the new Snow White avoid being the poison apple of Disney live-action redos, it actually manages to put some extra musical mojo on a ubiquitous fairy tale. Director Marc Webb’s vision honors but also blows up the template of the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The better-than-expected revamp strips away some of the forgettable matter — no charming princes here! Most importantly, White gives an inspired Rachel Zegler a different character arc and a smattering of original songs to let Snow strut as the fairest of them all.”

Snow White is now playing in theaters.