It’s been said that some stories are and should be sacred. Timeless. Immune to reinvention simply for reinvention’s sake. Unfortunately, no such reverence was shown in Disney’s latest desecration: Snow White (2025) — a so-called “live-action” adaptation that redefines the word misguided and pushes the very boundaries of what constitutes live-action in the first place.

We have to ask why the House of Mouse might have thought anyone—of any generation—would want to see a remake of their first full-length animated film presented in a way that insults its very fabric. To take a story with a heartwarming, if dated, family core and shatter it into an “updated” version for a generation that didn’t ask for it… it’s baffling. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s take this travesty apart as its own entity.

Let’s address that elephant in the fully-rendered, lifeless room: Disney seems to have confused live-action with CGI extravaganza. The majority of the film is so digitally overworked it makes Avatar look like guerrilla filmmaking. Forests, castles, wildlife—practically everything that could have been real has instead been sacrificed on the altar of hyper-sanitized artificiality. Even the characters appear waxy under the synthetic glow of whatever rendering engine they used. The result? A world that feels neither lived in nor alive—an animated husk that stretches the definition of “live” to near-comedic limits. Which, ironically, mirrors the acting: wooden, stiff, and wholly unconvincing.

The performances? Let’s be generous and call them earnest. The lead actress—meant to embody innocence, courage, and charm—delivers her lines like she’s trying to remember them phonetically. Her emotional range swings between mildly irritated and vaguely smug. Prince Charming (who is somehow more of a background prop than the literal castle) is given so little material to work with that one wonders if his main direction was “stand there and blink occasionally.” The chemistry between the leads could be bottled and sold as a sleep aid.

But then we come to the film’s greatest unintentional comedic achievement: Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. A character meant to exude menace, vanity, and theatrical grandeur is instead reduced to a baffling, charisma-devoid parody. Gadot—who cannot sing, cannot dance, and seemingly cannot emote beyond her usual stoic expressions—offers a performance so wooden it may soon be repurposed into IKEA furniture. Her villain song feels like a karaoke attempt at menace, her movements as fluid as a malfunctioning animatronic, and her delivery more suited to a perfume ad than dark sorcery. If there’s a Razzie with her name on it, it would be the one thing in this film that was accurately cast.

And speaking of singing—what exactly happened to the music? Once one of the original’s most enchanting elements, the new score is a tonal disaster. It tries—feebly—to remain in the “spirit” of the original, but fails so spectacularly that it makes the audience cringe. The reimagined songs, stripped of sincerity and drowned in synthetic overproduction, come across more like auto-tuned parodies than emotional moments. Where the original melodies swelled with warmth and magic, these new versions feel thin, mechanical, and emotionally hollow. Simply put, these songs should have been left untouched—or better yet, left out entirely. Their inclusion, rather than elevating the film, becomes another nail in its already well-sealed coffin.

And then there’s the studio’s baffling decision surrounding the iconic dwarfs. Rather than casting talented actors to bring warmth, humor, and heart to these beloved characters, Disney opted for a set of computer-generated monstrosities that feel more like off-brand video game NPCs than anything resembling real personalities. The rationale? A cryptic blend of political correctness and poor judgment that only a corporate boardroom could rationalize. The result is not progress—it’s erasure.

These CGI caricatures are not only visually jarring but emotionally inert. Watching them shuffle through their scenes with programmed gestures and dead-eyed expressions is less charming whimsy and more existential horror. Even their work in the fabled diamond mine—once a symbol of joyful labor and camaraderie—is reduced to a bizarre, soulless exercise in “harvesting.” They don’t mine, they absorb, as though the animators weren’t quite sure how digging works. The sequence raises more questions than it answers: What are they collecting? Why does it feel like an alien ritual? And why, in the name of everything Grimm, was this considered an improvement?

And then there’s the writing. A Frankenstein’s monster of studio notes and social messaging, stitched together with all the grace of a rusted chainsaw. Iconic moments from the original tale are butchered or outright omitted, replaced with clunky exposition, half-hearted empowerment slogans, and “quirky” humor that feels like it was tested on focus groups made entirely of algorithm bots. Gone is the magic, the peril, the heart. In its place: a sanitized, soulless parody of what once was.

Some will argue that stories must evolve to reflect modern values. That’s fine—when done with intelligence, creativity, and respect. But Snow White (2025) is not an evolution. It is a corporate pastiche wearing the skin of a classic, disrespecting its own legacy in a desperate bid to remain “relevant.”

This film should not be celebrated. It should be studied—as a cautionary tale in how not to adapt a beloved work. If there’s any justice in the cinematic realm, Snow White (2025) will soon find its final resting place in the bargain bin of forgotten misfires, quietly gathering dust next to the lesser Home Alone sequels and that live-action Pinocchio nobody talks about.

Mirror, mirror on the wall…
What the hell happened to it all?