Movie and a dinner...

Last week we made use of some free movie tickets so we could watch Thor Snow White and the Huntsman

I was expecting to see Iron Man appear in this movie...just kidding! It's been a week and so far it's #1 at the box office...


Here are the main actors: Kristen Stewart (former indie queen and now blockbuster queen) as Snow White, Charlize Theron as the evil and bitchy Queen Ravenna, and Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman.

Oh yeah, there are some dwarves too. Ha ha. They don't appear until after the first hour and there are EIGHT. One dies during a pivotal scene and then it's seven. Of the eight, the only ones I recognized were Ian McShane (on Thor's right), Bob Hoskins (on the left) and in the far back behind the redhead is Nick Frost (Simon Pegg's buddy in "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead").  And I just needed another excuse to post a picture of the very hunky hunstman. Hunt this.

This was a very dark take on the fairy tale classic. Not like "Mirror Mirror", a vastly different Snow White flick that starred Genesis drummer Phil Collins' daughter, Lily as Snow White and Julia Roberts as the evil Queen. That movie was more like a musical or something. In any case, I didn't bother to watch that. This, on the other hand, I was curious to see since it makes Snow White out to be a warrior chick.

Well, the "warrior" business doesn't really happen 'til the end of the movie.

But let's rewind.

What I liked:
The costumes - pure awesome! Especially Queen Ravenna, every scene was a costume change. Very sexy and dark!  Snow White even rocks what looks to be leather pants underneath her billowing skirt. I didn't expect to see that, so yeah, kick ass!

The action - I had to ask Bert's opinion since he's more of an action movie lover than I am. His verdict was that the movie wasn't totally action packed, but had enough action to please the guys who went with their wives or girlfriends. The action was heavier towards the end (the battle scene where Snow White gives a "Braveheart-y" rousing speech and then they charge the castle. There were also fight scenes in the Dark Forest. Lots of swashbuckling and shooting of arrows and slinging of fire balls.

Not so believable -
How come Snow White isn't malnourished, cursed with bad teefs and mangy hair? Wasn't she imprisoned in a tower for most of her childhood and teen years?

And where did they get a suit of armor for Snow White so quickly? They just had one lying around, I'm sure.

Creepy character:  The Queen's brother.  Now I don't know if this character was in the original fairy tale or not, but this dude was all over this damn movie.  When did HE become so important? The Queen's brother had a horribly exaggerated Prince Valiant haircut and was borderline pedophilic (he tries to rape Snow White) and incestuous. I was creeped out by the scene in which the Queen takes a bath in milk. As she disrobes, the camera pans to his face. Ugh! I kept thinking of the scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" where Principal Rooney is watching Ferris Bueller (masquerading as Sloane Peterson's dad ) giving a not-so-fatherly kiss to Sloan.

"So that's how it is in their family..."

The Prince (William):  He was hardly in the movie. Just barely. The movie sets up a bit of a weak love triangle towards the end. I read on another blog that a sequel to SWATH was given the greenlight (gee, that wasn't obvious was it?). Perhaps they will show more of the hunky Huntsman! Yes please.

 I read that Hemsworth used a Scottish accent so people wouldn't think of Thor since he had a British accent. Bert vehemently disagreed with my take on Thor's accent saying it wasn't British, but rather, "Asgardian".  Whatever dude! Ha ha.

The guy who played the Prince was Sam Claflin (British actor) who played Philip in the last installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides".

I like this version of Snow White but I wished the movie would have gone a lot faster to the end.

It got a bit tiresome  watching Snow White and the Huntsman trudge about the Dark Forest. Okay, we get it. The Dwarves were the comic relief of course. Pretty funny to hear and see them.  They had weird hair styles and had some good one liners.

Upon trapping Snow White...

"I don't like killing girls" says one dwarf. Another chimes in, "I do!"

Don't even ask me their names. I have no clue. And no, they weren't named Goofy, Sleepy, Grumpy or Doc!

The Special Effects - There was lots of shattered glass and bird imagery ('Put a bird on it!'). Beautiful cinematography. The creepy dark forest was pretty scary. Hallucinations in the forest were a direct result of your fears. My skin crawled when Snow White was covered in snakes. Loved the lush enchanted forest with the googly eyed mushrooms and wierd creatures (fairies, the troll, and the stag).

As with our previous movie outing when we saw "The Avengers", we chose Beijing Mandarin Chinese restaurant again since it was open late (up to 11 pm on Fridays and weekends).  

Our entrees - Shrimp with vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, bamboo shoots, and onions) and Chicken Chow Mein. I didn't want anything fried...

The chow mein was pretty good. How much more descriptive do I need to be? We wanted something with noodles and this hit the spot. We had already tried the Singapore noodles a few weeks earlier. As Eric Packer from "Cosmopolis" would say, "I want something thick and chewy".  Whoa.

There are shrimps hidden underneath all those vegetables. There's one peeking out near a mushroom.

This was nice and saucy...

Even though the CPK was right across the way from the AMC, it was crazy busy, even at 9:20 pm.  Nico's Steakhouse is out of business and we didn't want to try any of the other nearby mall restaurants (King's Fish House, Cheesecake Factory, and PF Chang's).

It was nice to finally be on vacation that evening. No more work to worry about for another five weeks. TC was newly promoted so this was a treat for her to be out this late as well...

For those of you who saw SWATH, what did you think of the movie?