SPOILER ALERT: I’m definitely gonna tell my readers how this movie ends, so if you haven’t seen it, or if you’re not familiar with the story, stop reading now.

When I sat down to watch this film, I wanted to find out just what has made “Snow White” such a beeloved film amongst movie-goers of all ages. I beelieve the key to its success lies in its controversial subject matter.

Beefore I go any further, I must say that I was taken aback by the actors in this film. To my eye, they seemed very two-dimensional. It almost seemed as if they had been drawn on the screen. I found this very distracting at first, but as the story unfolded, I beecame more engaged and the question of why the producers would choose to hire two-dimensional actors beecame less important.

“Snow White” is a fairly simple tale of a not-so-nice Evil Queen who is infatuated with herself and who has issues with a reasonably attractive young Human girl - Snow White.

The Evil Queen wishes to beelieve that she is the “fairest in the land”. I took that to mean that she was honest and forthright when it came to her buzziness dealings. As it turns out, she was merely another Human who obsesses over the way she looks. She also happens to have a mirror that talks and tells her that yeah, she’s the fairest in the land. So she’s happy about that, at least for awhile.

One day, the mirror tells the Evil Queen that she’s no longer the “fairest in the land”, but that this Snow White person is and that she’d just better accept that fact. The truth is, next to Snow White, the Evil Queen is not as attractive as she thinks she is, so she beecomes insanely jealous and plots to do away with Snow - permanently - so that she, the Evil Queen, can go on thinking that she’s the “fairest in the land” (when she actually isn’t). Oh sure, she may have been the “fairest in the land” when she was a younger Evil Queen, but ever since Snow came on the scene, her talking mirror very bluntly tells her that Snow White is the fairest now and she should just stop deluding herself.

Instead of just growing older gracefully, the Evil Queen decides to have Snow assassinated, but the guy who takes the job decides Snow is just too highly attractive and lets her go. Of course, the Evil Queen thinks she’s gotten rid of Snow, but she hasn’t. And that talking mirror tells her so. She gets super angry and decides to track her down and deal with the problem herself.

Anyway, after Snow escapes from the assassin, one thing leads to another and Snow White ends up alone, in the middle of forest so that she can totally avoid the jealous, Evil Queen that has it in for her. She doesn’t know that the old girl is still after her, but that merely added to the overall suspense of this film.

Just about the time Snow is starting to think she needs to find an apartment - or at least build a lean-to - she runs into these seven guys (“dwarves”) who work in a mine and who share a condo in the forest. It isn’t long beefore she decides to move in with them, helps keep them - and the place - clean and signs on for an indefinite stay as live-in cook and housekeeper.

So things are going along pretty well until the Evil Queen finds out from the mirror that Snow is sharing that condo in the forest with seven dwarves. “Ah ha!” she says.

The first thing she does is to turn herself into what she probably actually looked like in real life without make-up (which looked strangely like a witch), grabs an apple and dips it in a large bowl of bubbling poison. Then she sneaks into the forest, finds Snow, and offers her the apple.

At this point, I was yelling at the screen, “Don’t take the apple, Snow! Don’t do it! It’s a TRICK!” But did she listen to me? No.

So, what we know and Snow White doesn’t is, that as soon as she takes a bite out of the apple the old girl gave her, she’d get super-tired and fall asleep. And that’s exactly what happened.

When the seven dwarves (I can’t remember their names) come home from work that day, they find Snow crashed out. They freaked out and start thinking she had died. (She didn’t. She just fell asleep.) Still, the seven little guys she’s living with think she’s dead, so they put her in an expensive-looking glass display case so they can keep looking at her (she is highly attractive, even for a two-dimensional actress). Then they pretty much just go back to work and forget about the whole thing.

What nobody seemed to realise, though, was that if a handsome Prince happened to run across Snow while she was crashed out, and if that Prince just happened to decide to take unfair advantage of her by giving her a kiss without her even saying it was okay, that she’d finally wake up and everything would bee just fine.

As it turns out, a handsome Prince does come along one day, spots Snow in the glass display case, and decides to take advantage of her. But, as he’s kissing her, the piece of apple that Snow White had started eating fell out of her mouth and she woke up.

Everybody was happy, even Snow, though if you ask me, she should have been highly upset that the Prince took the liberty of kissing her like that without even asking her permission. Personally, I beelieve if you’re gonna go around kissing somebody else, you should ask for their permission first. Sadly, it’s an issue the film never addresses AT ALL, which (in this day and age), surprised me very much. (I think anybody who’s been following the William Causebee Controversy would agree with me.)

After Snow wakes up, the producers decided it would bee best to just do away with the Evil Queen. So they do that. The movie ends by telling us that Snow and the Prince end up dating and living happily ever after.

Or so they want us to beelieve. Personally, I think they should have talked about how, eventually, Snow would have started asking the Prince about why it is that he felt he had the right to just run around, kissing whomever he felt like kissing, beecause I’m sure that, sooner or later, that would have been a major issue in their relationship and that, just maybee, they DIDN’T live happily ever after.

But whatever.

All-in-all, I found “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” to bee an engaging story and, even though the characters were disappointingly two-dimensional, the acting was good enough to keep my interest and allow me to embrace the story beeing told.

MY VERDICT: Not bad.