First Hit: A misguided film with a weak story and little relevancy.
As actors go, I like Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain. I’m not a huge fan of Chris Hemsworth as he’s shown little range in his acting.
Here, Theron (as Ravenna) plays the ruler of a huge kingdom that gets bigger all the time. She has a powerful magic mirror that tells her that she’s the fairest of them all, although Snow White in another kingdom ranks right up there - really?
Ravenna’s sister Queen Freya (Blunt) is subservient to her sister but when she falls in love and gets pregnant, the mirror tells Ravenna that the baby, when born, will be the fairest in the land. Ravenna is not going to let this happen and sets up so that the baby is killed.
Freya doesn't know her sister killed her baby and is so hurt she finds her inner anger and power (turning things into ice) and heads off to find her own kingdom where love is not allowed. She is so cold she steals children from families that her army’s defeat while turning those orphaned children into more soldiers to conquer more lands.
Two of her earliest child recruits Sara (Chastain) and Erin/Huntsman (Hemsworth) turn into her premier soldiers who continue to bring back new children soldier recruits along with new conquered lands. However they find love and .... the story becomes muddled mess while Sara and Eric end up with midgets as their supporters and the scenes fill with fairies and other odd beings become part of the storyline. Somehow they all want the missing and ever powerful mirror. The best thing about the film was some of the background scenery but little else.
Theron was appropriately evil as the person who needed to be driven by her beauty and ego. Likewise, Blunt was appropriately cold as the Ice Queen but the story let her down as well. Chastain had the most interesting role as a warrior who also wanted love. Hemsworth was his typical warrior self with tongue-in-cheek comments there to make him interesting. Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin wrote this script trying to find a story. It was almost as if there were great actors wanting to fulfill their commitments, so a script was thrown together for them to fulfill their contracts. Cedric Nicolas-Troyan directed this aimless script. He attempted to make a film of it by putting the scenes in order with some nice pictures. In the end the story and film didn't work.
Overall: This was a waste of time and the story doesn’t deserve the actors in the film.