Review | Snow White movie review: Rachel Zegler carries Disney’s bland live-action remake

Lacking the magic of some other live-action remakes of Disney classics, Snow White is missing the heart you expect from the House of Mouse

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Rachel Zegler as Snow White in a still from the live-action Snow White (category I), directed by Marc Webb. Gal Gadot co-stars. Photo: Disney

Published: 3:00am, 20 Mar 2025

2/5 stars

Disney continues the rapacious reinvention of its animated-film canon with Snow White. Is nothing safe?

Already, the conglomerate has reworked The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, to name a few, with varying degrees of success. But this take on Disney’s first full-length animated feature – itself based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale – arrives laced with controversy.

Everything from the casting of Latina actress Rachel Zegler as Snow White to using computer-generated imagery (CGI) to create the heroine’s compatriots, the seven dwarves, has infuriated various people.

So what is the result like? Directed by Marc Webb, the American filmmaker behind the Andrew Garfield-era Spider-Man films, it is a colourful, chaotic take on the tale that adds little to the original.

Zegler, who sprang to fame in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, carries the film well enough, delivering vocally strong renditions of the original’s songs, like “Whistle While You Work”, as well as additions that include “Waiting on a Wish” – written by La La Land’s songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.