Universal Pictures has released the first official trailer for The Huntsman: Winter's War, the prequel/sequel/spin-off to the 2012 mess of a film Snow White and the Huntsman. Chris Hemsworth returns to his role as Eric, the Huntsman, with Charlize Theron reprising her own as Ravenna, the Evil Queen, but newcomers Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain fill in the roles of Freya, the Ice Queen and Sara, the Warrior, in that order.
Nowhere to be found? Kristen Stewart's Snow White.
It isn't shocking. The whole reason Winter's War is a prequel/sequel/spin-off is due to the scandal surrounding Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders' affair with Stewart. So, a direct sequel involving the two of them was shelved back in 2012, and the plan instead became to focus on Hemsworth's Huntsman character. At some point, Winter's War became a prequel spin-off about Eric's life before Snow White and the Huntsman that also covers the time after the original movie where the Evil Queen's sister resurrects her. If that sounds overly complicated, that's because it is.
The film's official synopsis doesn't help much in deciphering how exactly these two pieces fit together:
Long before the evil Queen Ravenna (Theron) was thought vanquished by Snow White's blade, she watched silently as her sister, Freya (Blunt), suffered a heartbreaking betrayal and fled their kingdom. With Freya's ability to freeze any enemy, the young ice queen has spent decades in a remote wintry palace raising a legion of deadly huntsmen — including Eric (Hemsworth) and warrior Sara (Chastain) — only to find that her prized two defied her one demand: Forever harden your hearts to love.
When Freya learns of her sister's demise, she summons her remaining soldiers to bring the Magic Mirror home to the only sorceress left who can harness its power. But once she discovers Ravenna can be resurrected from its golden depths, the wicked sisters threaten this enchanted land with twice the darkest force it's ever seen. Now, their amassing army shall prove undefeatable ... unless the banished huntsmen who broke their queen's cardinal rule can fight their way back to one another.
Even so, the first trailer here does a lot to make it appealing. However, that's the trap of the original Snow White and the Huntsman, too: enticing trailers for what ended up being a fair-to-middling movie with very pretty visuals, a gorgeous soundtrack and a mediocre script.
The Huntsman: Winter's War is scheduled to release in theaters on April 22, 2016.
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