The Hunts­man: Winter’s War

Let’s hear it for lit­tle guys, the noble com­e­dy side­kick, often just tossed in to some po-faced wannabe block­buster for light relief. It doesn’t seem like there’s much else to dis­cuss when it comes to Cedric Nicolas-Troyan’s The Hunts­man: Winter’s War, a fea­ture­less, self-assem­bly adven­ture flick which, even though its cast is pri­mar­i­ly female, ends up plac­ing the lone male as the chest-beat­ing hero.

A gar­bled quest nar­ra­tive, creak­i­ly built around the antics of 2012’s Snow White and the Hunts­man and some howl­ing och-aye-the-noo! Scot­tish accent work, is leav­ened no end by British com­e­dy stal­warts Rob Bry­don and Nick Frost, play­ing bick­er­ing dwarves who lope in the back­drop and fire saucy zingers back at Chris Hemsworth while he keeps time look­ing buff and sexy.

But wait, there’s more. While the cen­tral female cast of Jes­si­ca Chas­tain and Emi­ly Blunt do lit­tle to lift the film above sim­i­lar fan­ta­sy-based mid­dle-weights, Sheri­dan Smith comes gal­lop­ing to the res­cue, yet again as com­ic relief, her tim­ing, deliv­ery and hap­py emer­sion with­in this sil­ly uni­verse leav­ing her A‑list coun­ter­parts in the dust. She is thrust into the plot about half way, and the film as a whole instant­ly gains a pulse. Her sil­ver-tongued back-and-forths with Bry­don are an obvi­ous high­light, as is a wan­ton­ly gooey roman­tic sub­plot involv­ing Frost and Smith’s dwarvish cohort played by Alexan­dra Roach. Yes, there’s kung-fu axe show­downs, min­ions get­ting beat­en down blood­less­ly with orna­men­tal staffs, and much rhubarb­i­ng about the fate of the king­dom, but its impact is neg­li­gi­ble com­pared to the friv­o­lous ban­ter occur­ring just below the neck-line.

Blunt plays naffed off ice queen Freya. A abortive pup­py love turns to a life of impe­ri­al­ist vio­lence when some­one sets fire to her new­born baby in its crib, which is under­stand­able. The under­ling boyf is blamed, but there’s always an inkling that Char­l­ize Theron’s Raven­na (lat­er slain by Snow White but wait­ing in the aisles for an chance to return and do some evil) might’ve played some part in the deed. Freya sets up shop, mas­sacres the locals, steals their kids and trains them up as dou­ble-hard assas­sins who wear fig­ure-hug­ging leather slacks. Two of them grow into Hemsworth and Chas­tain. They fall in love, but no, no, no, love is not allowed under this new régime, and so they’re ban­ished from Freya’s guard.

It’s not entire­ly clear where things go from there. There’s still a mag­ic mir­ror, though its pur­pose seems to be admin­is­ter­ing a tem­po­rary mind-fuck­ing to whomev­er stares into it. Things roll on and roll out. There’s pre­cious lit­tle ambi­tion on show, and so the fact that the hec­tic cli­max is trimmed of all but nec­es­sary detail, to the point where it seems like we’re watch­ing a mon­tage of con­ti­nu­ity errors, is for­giv­able. It doesn’t do much that’s right or mem­o­rable, though you could hard­ly call medi­oc­rity a car­di­nal sin. And still, there’s the fun­ny side play­ers to cher­ish while the oth­ers slash at one-another’s oily ten­ta­cles in a dull bat­tle for the future of human­i­ty. If fur­ther Hunts­man world build­ing is required, let’s go full-tilt com­e­dy and have Sher­dian Smith in the lead.