THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER'S WAR is a belated sequel to SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, thankfully ditching Kristen Stewart's character (yay!) and focusing instead on Chris Hemsworth's dashing but one-note hero. This is one of those stories that serves as both prequel and sequel, but in the main it turns out to be a mish-mash of genre tropes and themes utilised better in the likes of the NARNIA trilogy. Charlize Theron is bypassed and has little screen time, with the bulk villain duties instead given over to an insipid (and utterly unimposing) Emily Blunt. Jessica Chastain plays a single-note warrior woman while film as a whole is obsessed with constant CGI scenery and effects at the detriment of any discernable storyline. Indeed, the dialogue and plot are both full of cliches, with Hemsworth's character alone seemingly killed two or three times in various hackneyed moments of high drama. I did enjoy the first movie, to a degree, but this one's a step too far in the wrong direction.

You've heard of "Hamlet" without the Prince. Now we have "Snow White" without the Princess. "The Huntsman: Winter's War" is, officially, both a prequel and sequel to "Snow White and the Huntsman"- the action takes place both before and after the events of the first film- but Snow White does not actually appear in it, even though she is mentioned on a couple of occasions. The film also borrows a few ideas from "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen, or possibly from "Frozen", the Disney adaptation of Andersen's story.Although Snow White does not appear, Charlize Theron's evil Queen Ravenna returns from the earlier film. The main villainess, however, is Ravenna's younger sister Freya, who rules her own kingdom, a land of ice and snow, in the far north, and who remains in power even after Ravenna has been overthrown. As the title implies, Chris Hemsworth's Huntsman also returns. We learn that, in this context, the word "Huntsman" does not necessarily mean "man who hunts animals". The Huntsmen are the elite troops of Freya's army, trained in the arts of war from childhood, and Hemsworth's character, Eric, is one of these. He incurs Freya's displeasure, however, when he falls in love with a female Huntsman, Sara. (Freya's army is an equal opportunities employer). As Freya has replaced the Ten Commandments with one of her own, "thou shalt not love", Eric is banished from the kingdom and Sara put to death.I won't set out the rest of the plot because it is essentially a mish-mash of clichés drawn from every sword-and-sorcery adventure you've ever seen. I said above that the film borrows from "The Snow Queen"; it also borrows heavily- as do most modern sword-and-sorceries- from "Lord of the Rings", both Tolkien's novel and Peter Jackson's three films. Like "Lord of the Rings" it revolves around an evil ruler trying to get his/her hands on a magical artefact, in this case Ravenna's magic mirror, which will give him/her immense power. In both cases the aforesaid evil ruler is opposed by an assorted group of good guys, in this case Eric and a few dwarfs, both male and female. (It is a general rule of the fantasy genre that dwarfs and elves are good, trolls and goblins evil). Besides the dwarfs, Eric also has the assistance of Sara, rumours of whose death prove to have been much exaggerated. (That's not a spoiler. No film company is going to hire a major star like Jessica Chastain and kill her off in the first reel).Although this is officially an American film, only one of the actors playing the main characters is American; Hemsworth is Australian, Theron South African and Emily Blunt (Freya) British. The one exception is Chastain, and even she does not sound American. Like a number of the other characters she speaks her lines in what is supposed to be a Scottish accent. Now I was not worried that some of these accents were not completely accurate- the action takes place in a fairy-tale fantasy world, not in the real Scotland- but I did wonder why an American studio were making a film using accents that many American viewers would have difficulty with.I never really thought of Blunt as being a Charlize Theron look-alike, but here the two actresses are made up to look convincingly similar; you could certainly take them for sisters. Where Blunt has difficulty is in trying to suggest a difference in personality. The script suggests that, unlike the bad-through-and-through Ravenna, Freya may not be completely evil and that she may have a softer side to her character, although she keeps it well hidden. (Ravenna, for example, would probably have killed both Eric and Sara outright rather than letting them live). Blunt never, however, really suggests this in her portrayal; the most that comes across is that Freya is only 99% evil, which is not such a big improvement on the full hundred. Theron herself was rather splendid in "Snow White and the Huntsman", but does not make the same impression here.I am old enough to remember just how bad fantasy films could be in the pre-Jackson era. (Think, if you can bear to, of "Conan the Barbarian" or "Prince Valiant"). Even otherwise distinguished directors could make fools of themselves when they ventured into this territory, Ridley Scott's "Legend" and Richard Fleischer's spectacularly awful "Red Sonja" being cases in point Admittedly, in the 2010s no film could get away with special effects as inadequate as those used in "Red Sonja" and other eighties adventures, and those in "The Huntsman: Winter's War" are generally well done, but that is no more than we have come to expect from the genre in recent years. Visual effects alone, however, are not enough; those film-makers who want to emulate Jackson's achievement need a story as good as Tolkien's, a literate script and first-class acting, and those are all qualities in which this film is deficient. "Snow White and the Huntsman" is not in the "Lord of the Rings" class, but it still has plenty to enjoy. Not so its successor. 4/10

Even such a collection of stars - so appealing on their own can't save a movie which has a bad story that I actually was bored most of the movie. I love almost everything Jessica Chastain and Charlize Theron do. But there is no saving this terribly weak story.The good points: 1. Emily Blunt looks pretty here - more so than usual. 2. Charlize is stunningly beautiful as well. The costumes of the 2 queens are grandly done. 3. Jessica Chastain is good at action.The bad points: 1. Couldn't understand what Chris Hemsworth was saying. They should have abandoned the Shrek like Scottish accents 2. The dwarfs weren't funny 3. The story is absurd - looking for a silly mirror and killing her niece.Terrible. Serves them right for dumping K Stew.

Winter's War takes you on the "other side" ... yet when I watched the movie on cable, the narration at the start really killed the story. While narration can work, and it appears that Liam Neeson did the narration, it was very distracting for this half baked story.Great cast, maybe worth a rental. Is there a "no narration" version lying around somewhere??The previous movie in this series worked much better.