Snow White, the beloved classic movie, has always held a special place in many people’s hearts, but a new version has stirred up controversy and negative reactions from the public.
It’s been almost 3 months since Disney’s Snow White (2025) was released in theaters, and all of the reviews you see on the internet have been negative. As of today, the film has a 1.6/10 on IMDb, a 40% critics score, and a 72% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. There are some positive reviews that you’ll mostly see from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes, but the majority of the reviews are VERY negative.
Reviews from people who watched the film:
Sahil55's review of Snow White - IMDb: The apple was the least poisoned thing on screen. The dwarves acted like grumpy old men, not miners, just muttering and shuffling around. The prince was boring as hell, no spark, no nothing, like he slept through the whole movie. The story wandered around with no point, like it got lost in the woods. The forest looked fake, and the whole thing felt like a school play gone wrong. You'd think with all that money, they'd make something decent, but no, they churned out this snooze fest instead. Skip it unless you hate yourself or love watching paint dry. A fairy tale so dead, no kiss could save it.
Dandxlion's review of Snow White - IMDb: Disney ruined the Snow White of my childhood. This version is like a new movie called Snow White. The movie overdid it, and it affected the story. It almost made me cry in the theater. This is not the Snow White of my childhood that I dreamed of seeing. The main characters are completely uncharismatic. I won't talk about the main characters because everyone has already said it for me, but the villainous Evil Queen really disappointed me. Gal Gadot didn't make me feel like she was an Evil Queen. Her performance completely lacked the Evil Queen spirit. I miss my childhood Snow White. I hope to see the remake version in the future that everyone wants to see.
imdbfan-4964290220's review of Snow White - IMDb: One of the worst live-action remakes ever made. The story is poorly rewritten, the pacing drags, and the visuals feel lifeless. Gal Gadot's performance as the Queen is stiff, lacking menace and presence. The dwarfs feel irrelevant, and their inclusion is pointless. Iconic moments are either removed or handled so badly that they lose impact. The CGI is disappointing, and the entire film lacks the charm or magic expected from such a remake. Instead of a respectful update, it feels like a soulless cash grab. A frustrating, unnecessary remake that fails on every level. 1/10. If you care for your hard-earned money, don't waste it on this movie.
What could have led to all these reviews? Why are people hating this movie? Did Disney make the plot of a classic story look bad, or is it more than just a bad plot?
The controversies began in June 2021, when Rachel Zegler was announced to play the role of Snow White, which immediately sparked a significant amount of backlash from the public. The most likely reason for the backlash was that Zegler is of Latin descent, playing a character named “Snow White” who is described as having skin “as white as snow.”
On January 14, 2022, Peter Dinklage criticized the film and called it a “backwards story” because of the film’s depiction of the 7 dwarfs. Dinklage says, “There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on. Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White. But you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me, you’re progressive in one way but then you’re still making that f*cking backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what the f*ck are you doing, man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough. I don’t know which studio that is, but they were so proud of it. All love and respect to the actress and all the people who thought they were doing the right thing. But I’m just like, ‘What are you doing?’”
This would lead Disney to respond on January 25, 2022, by saying, “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community.” But Katrina Kemp and Dylan Postl, who are other actors with dwarfism, responded, “It’s not helping our community, it’s taking jobs away from our community that are very few and far between as it is.” Postl said. “It’s a missed opportunity to make a movie with seven little people where they actually have intended characters. There will have been people who gladly would have taken those roles,” Kemp said.
On September 11, 2022, Rachel Zegler described how the live-action film would be different from the original, “The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! Weird. So we didn’t do that this time, we have a different approach to what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude … But it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful … All of Andrew’s scenes could get cut, who knows? It’s Hollywood, baby! It’s an inner journey that she goes on to find her true self, and she meets a lot of people along the way who make the journey really incredible.” These comments from her would be used to cause more backlash on the film.
On July 14, 2023, an on-set photo leak of the film appears to show the seven dwarfs being portrayed by one actor with dwarfism and six actors of various genders and races, who are not little people. This photo would grow the film’s backlash even more from fans, but in the final cut of the film, these would turn out to be entirely different characters.
On October 27, 2023, a first look image reveals that the dwarfs won’t be played by actors with dwarfism, but instead will be CGI characters.
On August 10-12, 2024, the teaser trailer for the movie is released and is met with calls for a boycott because of Gal Gadot’s pro-Israel stance. Gadot has been a vocal supporter of Israel, but her co-star Rachel Zegler has been publicly pro-Palestine since 2021. She once tweeted to her fans, saying, “And always remember, free Palestine.”
March 21, 2025, Snow White releases in theaters, the movie ends up underperforming at the box office, and brings in about $43 million domestically. A lot of the reviews, like the ones you read in the beginning, are very negative, and these reviews resulted in the movie having a very low rating on IMDb and a bad score on Rotten Tomatoes.
On March 26, 2025, Jonah Platt, son of Marc Platt, would respond to an Instagram comment criticizing his father’s reported actions, he responds to this comment saying that his dad “had to leave his family to fly across the country to reprimand his 20 year old employee for dragging her personal politics into the middle of promoting the movie for which she signed a multi-million dollar contract to get paid and do publicity for.” Jonah would go on to blame Zegler’s actions for the film’s poor box-office numbers.
So that’s about all the controversies Disney’s Snow White (2025) had to face during its production. Is Jonah Platt right about Zegler being the one to blame for the film, or should the blame all go to Disney themselves? Did you enjoy the movie when it was released in theaters, or did you not enjoy it?
