“Snow White” review: Disney's best live-action remake is the fairest of them all, thanks to Rachel Zegler

Hollywood can't seem to get enough of remakes and reboots, most of them empty cash plays with nothing to add to the original aside from maybe updated visual effects. Disney's live-action Snow White is not that.

The bones of Walt Disney's first big swing into feature-length animation — a young princess ordered killed by her evil stepmother is spared and finds friends in the dwarves and woodland creatures of the forest, takes a bite of a poison apple, is saved by a kiss — remain intact in director Marc Webb's (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man) reimagining of 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. But screenwriter Erica Cressida Wilson (Secretary, The Girl on the Train) and songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman) more than literally take these previously 2-dimensional characters and flesh them out in a fully-formed 3-D world.

Deserving equal credit for the successes of this dreamy fairy tale is star Rachel Zegler. When news of her casting broke, much of the unfortunate corners of social media had a lot to say about the fact that her skin is not white as snow (she is — apparently much to the surprise of some West Side Story executives — Latina, after all). And more recent headlines about the film predominately focused on real-life drama involving her evil queen, Gal Gadot. But from the moment Zegler appears on screen, after a prologue that establishes younger Snow White's loving relationship with her parents, it's clear she was born to play a Disney princess.

Related: See the Snow White cast transformed into iconic characters for Disney's (surprisingly) controversial remake

As Snow White, the superstar in the making exudes a quiet earnestness, but with passion and purpose always flickering behind those big almond eyes. Wilson provides Zegler's princess with agency and purpose beyond dreaming that "Someday My Prince Will Come." In fact, that song — and its prince — are nowhere to be found. Instead, with "Waiting on a Wish," which had #TheatreTok aflurry when it was released as the lead single of the film's soundtrack, Zegler's airy yet powerful vocals profess the character's desire to step up and become "The girl I'm meant to be...Someone who could finally start / Start speaking with a fearless heart / Someone who just might be brave / Someone no one needs to save."

Even when it comes time to clean the dwarves' cottage, this Snow White is a commander in chief, teaching not animals but the dwarves themselves how to tidy up their own home and "Whistle While You Work" (one of just three Frank Churchill and Larry Morey songs that were updated for the new film with, frankly, surprising success). And this Snow White isn't resigned to life in exile. She aims to venture south and investigate rumors her father is still alive and return to her kingdom where they can lead with compassion that's been missing since her mother's death and father's disappearance.

There's no denying this is solidly Snow White's movie. Perhaps that's why Disney dropped "and the Seven Dwarfs" this time around.

Aiding the princess is a band of rebels led by the dashing Jonathan (Tony winner Andrew Burnap). From his hair to his wardrobe to the white horse he rides at one point, Burnap's Jonathan is basically in Flynn Rider cosplay, giving us the closest we've gotten to a live-action Tangled...so far.

Related: Rachel Zegler shares the Taylor Swift-coded way Steven Spielberg told her she was cast in Snow White

Like in the 1939 film, Snow White meets her potential true love at the castle. But this time, they actually establish a camaraderie as partners in (literal) crime rather than just jumping right to a kiss at the end of the film. While he's not a prince, Burnap is truly charming — particularly in his beautifully shot duet with Zegler, "A Hand Meets a Hand."

Burnap and Zegler's chemistry is innocent but palpable. Their relationship feels real, and their eventual kiss earned. It's when Snow White deviates from that grounded reality that the film is less successful.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related: Rachel Zegler explains how her Snow White's name is not related to skin color

I'll leave it to others to continue the debate about whether Disney should have cast little people as the dwarfs. (As it stands, Martin Klebba voices Grumpy. And George Appleby plays a memorable member of Jonathan's troupe). But the choice to use CGI is jarring, distracting from the dwarfs' otherwise delightful introduction in the film.

Until their arrival, Snow White feels like a fairy tale set in a very real world — albeit one with a magic mirror. A forced perspective option may have kept the vibe alive or, at the very least, allowed the fun cast of dwarfs (including the voices of Tituss Burgess as Bashful and George Salazar as Happy) to feel individual. Aside from the motion-capture puppeteers sneezing or furrowing a brow in correspondence to their character's name, six of these dwarfs seem interchangeable — and all sound a little like Josh Gad, for some reason. Dopey, voiced (yes) by Andrew Barth Feldman, is the one exception, due to the character's more youthful appearance...though he may sound the most Gad-y.

Related: New Snow White preview says heigh-ho to Gal Gadot's spooky Evil Queen transformation and menacing Magic Mirror

And while Pasek and Paul's songs deserve all the awards buzz they're sure to generate (despite sounding all a little familiar to fans of their work, an understandable pitfall of many legendary contributors to the Great American Songbook; Kander and Ebb, Sondheim, Miranda...), they pack less of a punch when sung by Gadot. The former Wonder Woman makes the most of her limited character and chews the scenery, but sounds almost metallic on the Evil Queen's big song and reprise, a stark contrast to Zegler's crystal-clear vocals.

Given the source material, it's expected that Zegler ends the film reprising the uplifting opening song "Good Things Grow" (my favorite). But it is pleasantly surprising that the Snow White team resisted the urge to make their leading lady a commander in chief again, rallying troops into some epic Act 3 battle against the queen, as one has come to expect from these reimaginings.

That balance of giving the audience the story they know so well but with just the right amount of newness and unpredictability is the true magic of Webb's Snow White. It makes me all the more hopeful for Lilo & Stitch. B+

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly