Movie

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)

This follow-up to Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) is superior entertainment, and offers more lively action and likeable characters. Charlize Theron can always be relied upon to provide a great villainess, but the first movie was as dull as her evil queen’s barren landscape. Kristen Stewart’s title heroine doesn’t return, which might have something to do with her lacklustre performance. Chris Hemsworth is promoted to hero, which is no bad thing.

Fans of strong female characters will find much to enjoy in Winter’s War, which serves as both a prequel and a sequel. Besides the two evil queens, the Huntsman gets a warrior companion and lover in Jessica Chastain’s Sara. A ratio of 3:1 of female to male top billing is welcome, considering the token roles for women in decades gone by.

The movie begins approximately ten years before Snow White, with the Huntsman and Sara as children captured by Queen Freya. She’s the sister of Ravenna and rules her own icy kingdom. It will come as no surprise that the romance, like so many in fantasy worlds, ends tragically. The focus then shifts to events after the first movie, with Ravenna defeated and Freya searching for the fabled magic mirror.

Villainesses

Freya (Emily Blunt), Ravenna (Charlize Theron)

Freya is the main villain for acts one and two, and the prequel section does a good job of establishing her character. This lady is literally an ice queen, whose magic powers awaken after her child is murdered. The person responsible is seemingly her lover, but most viewers will deduce early on that Ravenna is behind it. Especially since she lurks in the corridor beforehand, but the proxy killer is enough to deceive her naïve sister.

Freya has a cold attitude toward love and human life. She captures young children to train as her personal army, which includes the Huntsman and Sara. Years later, the queen learns of their forbidden romance and disobedience. So she orders Sara’s execution, and forces her lover to watch through an impenetrable wall of ice.

Shifting forward in time, the Huntsman – now a lone wanderer – is rescued from attackers by a masked figure. The audience will probably guess their identity before the reveal, but Sara gets a badass unmasking scene. Freya’s wall of ice created different illusions for the two lovers, but neither died. And guess what? They team up to track down the magic mirror and save the world.

Freya’s army captures the heroes, and the queen tests Sara’s loyalty. The heroine appears to betray the Huntsman by shooting an arrow through his heart, but anyone hoping for three female villains will be disappointed. He survives because of the old “concealed object obstructing a projectile” trick. The life-saving item is a pendant that signifies their love is well and truly alive.

Freya’s delight at acquiring the mirror proves short-lived as it responds to her inevitable query, “Who is the fairest of them all?” by summoning her evil sister back from the dead. She’s now a shapeshifter construct made from gold, which makes this incarnation of Ravenna especially hard to kill.

In the climactic battle, the Huntsman and Sara attempt to assassinate Freya, only to discover the original evil queen has returned. Ravenna can’t resist revealing her involvement in the murder of Freya’s child, so everyone teams up against the big bad for the denouement. Even those odds prove a challenge until the Huntsman targets the source of the power – the magic mirror – and shatters it.

In a spectacular death scene, Ravenna solidifies into an inanimate golden shell and breaks into tiny pieces. Fans of the 1996 Tomb Raider game will find this reminiscent of Lara’s fate should she step on Midas’ hand. Freya’s death and her overall character arc are much more tragic. She perishes from a mortal wound, with just enough energy to acknowledge the heroes’ true love.