We're just a few weeks shy of blockbuster season for the film industry and this weekend's big release is the sequel to 2012's Snow White and The Huntsmen but is the movie icy hot or just a cold mess? The Huntsman: Winter's War, is a mix of prequel and sequel, that serves as both background and an extension of the original movie featuring a new villainous queen. The beginning shows how the Huntsman came to be, surrounded by other stolen children in a camp to become an army to serve a grieving queen after the loss of her own child. After about 20 minutes, a plot twist (that feels extremely cheap but actually ended up being smart) nearly undoes any interesting portion of the beginning, making you wonder why they even wasted time showing the "prequel portion," even though it's explained again later in the film. A handful of characters return from the previous film like Nick Frost as a dwarf, serving as the comedic relief and Sam Claflin for an extremely brief cameo. Again, Charlize Theron's Ravenna is the best part of this film, by a long shot. Both in plot and delivery, the scene stealing queen is the only menacing one in this film. Not even the strange, horned gorilla-trolls were as crazy as led to believe. There's a series of strange, head scratching moments like some involving a bridge and some extremely underused side characters, but there's enough plot twist to actually surprise you if you can sit through this film. It scenery is again gorgeous and the costumes out do the first film which picked up a nomination for Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards. All in all, it improves on the first film (despite it's many flaws) and seeing as it has no competition this weekend, it might be worth checking out just to enjoy the aesthetics.
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