The Huntsman: Winter's War

Mirror mirror on the wall, what’s the fairest sequel of them all? Not this follow-up to ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’, which starred Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as her hot evil stepmother. ‘Winter’s War’ is hammily entertaining, but at points feels like a Russian oligarch has thrown a ‘Game of Thrones’ party and bunged his favourite Hollywood actors a few million quid each to come in fancy dress.

Kristen Stewart is gone. So this time the story – it gets pretty messy – begins as a prequel, with the queen’s heartbroken sister (Emily Blunt) fleeing to a frozen wasteland. Curdled by grief, she transforms into the Ice Queen, kidnapping children to grow an army of heartless killers. The one rule in her kingdom is that nobody can fall in love. But two of her fighters (Jessica Chastain and Chris Hemsworth, back as the Huntsman) can’t help it. Blunt outclasses everyone, cold as steel and creepily unhinged.

Chastain does a decent Katniss. But chirpy-chappy Chris Hemsworth looks like he’s in a different movie. And, like the original, we get the ritual humiliation of British actors digitally shrunken to dwarf-size (Nick Frost, Rob Brydon). All told, ‘Winter’s War’ is not the fairest sequel, but it’s not so terrible that it deserves to be taken out to the forest and finished off.