After dozens of fans spent years highly anticipating the release of Disney's live-action "Snow White" remake, finally, it hit movie theaters in early 2025. 

The film, starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, garnered negative attention for its seeming political slant, as well as pointed, controversial comments from Zegler that offended many potential moviegoers. For example, after the 2024 election, Zegler posted that she hoped supporters of President Donald Trump would "never know peace." 

That's just the start of the issues surrounding "Snow White."

There were obvious changes to the story, the casting received criticism, set photos leaked that seemed to imply the story's seven dwarfs were being replaced. Zegler's character wig looked bad, to say the least. And of course, her comments disparaged the original film as outdated, with a love story that would be removed to make Snow White a strong independent character. Unsurprisingly, it's theatrical release resulted in one of the biggest box office bombs in film history.

READ: 'Snow White' Box Office Run Is Almost Over, Cementing All-Time Flop For Disney 

So with the film now finally on Disney+, we watched it to see if it lived up, or down, to the "hype," criticism, and find out how much modern progressive messaging the once-proud studio managed to shove into a classic fairytale.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 18: Rachel Zegler attends the "Y2K" New York Screening at Crosby Street Hotel on November 18, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)

Does ‘Snow White’ Deserve The Hate It Gets?

The short answer is yes. And also no.

One of the biggest issues with "Snow White" is how the film looks and feels; it's fake, from start to finish. 

There's a heavy reliance on CGI, both in backgrounds, action shots, sets and animals. It's not good CGI. The lighting is awful, switching between overly glowing distance shots, desaturated grayscale, or pushed blues. There are a handful of shots in the entire, one-hour and 40-minute runtime that look to be in a real place. 

That's one issue, and there's plenty more. 

To recount the fact that Rachel Zegler is clearly part-Columbian, a heavy-handed voice-over at the beginning of the film explains that she's not named Snow White because her skin is white as snow, but because she was born during a blizzard. Sure. 

The costuming is cheap, lazy, and generally bad. Including the wig they gave Zegler, which makes her, inescapably, look like Lord Farquaad. The dialogue is equally bad; clunky, overwrought, cringe-inducing at times, and undersold by bad performances. 

That's another problem. There's not a single stand-out performance in the entire movie. Zegler, though a very talented vocalist who does her best with the songs and additions, is horrible as "Snow White." She has no charm, no warmth, frequently looks confused, like she's ACTING, in capital letters. Her performance in one scene with the Huntsman who's sent to kill her is so bad it's legitimately worthy of the memes it's created. 

Gal Gadot's no better. Yes, she's much better looking than Zegler, but her dialogue delivery is poor, and the new songs they created specifically for the Queen character don't do her any favors. All the songs suffer from the same extreme overproduction, where it's obvious that the voices have been autotuned to within an inch of their lives, even if the singers are talented. 

Instead of relying on the story to, you know, be the story, they turned the film into a musical. Which could have worked, if the songs were more memorable, necessary, or meaningful. They aren't.

Editing is choppy, indicating that there were reshoots, rewrites, and story changes that disrupted the film's pacing. That almost certainly created inconsistencies. For example, Snow White changes costumes into her signature look without explanation. She's presented as a character similar to Cinderella, who's forced to work in the castle despite her royal background, yet somehow has the Snow White gown ready at a moments notice. She references things her parents told her, though none of that is foreshadowed early on.

The movie feels slow, yet rushed. Some scenes drag, while others gloss over necessary details. 

Then there are the dwarfs. Oh lord, the dwarfs. The stuff of nightmares, with imagery that can't help but haunt viewers well after the film ends. The reconfigured story, changed to make Zegler's version more of a girl boss, limits their importance, giving them little to do at the climax of the story.

Characters turn up wherever the story needs them to be, without explanation. Travel times make little sense. There's no consistency to anything, and the film presents certain shots as layered in drama, when it's not earned or deserved. 

The end is one of the worst sequences; instead of building to a dramatic confrontation between the two characters, it just…fizzles out. Snow White, despite being hidden in the castle for years, is somehow immediately recognizable to townspeople, who flock to her presumably because she's wearing a red cape. She doesn't say anything, do anything, or lead anyone. They just follow her. The dwarfs are there, with no explanation or necessity. It's a mess.

Writing, tone, scenes, shots, lighting, acting, songs, choreography, costumes, sets…every single technical aspect of filmmaking is a disaster in "Snow White." 

But what about its politics?

It's clear with the editing and inconsistent pacing that the film went through extensive reshoots and rewrites to shoehorn in a romance between Snow White and the lead male character. The much-criticized "girlboss" reconfiguring of the Snow White character is mostly toned down as a result. She's less obnoxious to the dwarfs than it seemed she'd be. 

But overall, there's not much in the way of obvious political commentary in the film. Whatever was there, Disney had removed to try and salvage its box office. Clearly, it didn't work. 

As a movie, "Snow White" is a disaster. Zegler isn't likable, the story changes don't make sense, it's poorly executed and takes an original story full of heart and warmth and replaces it with a poor imitation lacking in any of those qualities. In short, it's a Disney remake.