Snow White And The Huntsman (2012)

Snow White And The Huntsman is the classic tale of Snow White given the full-on Lord Of The Rings treatment.

Director Rupert Sanders was clearly taking lessons from Peter Jackson with his presentation of a fully-developed fantasy world.

Unfortunately, for all its sumptuous production values, the script by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini is quite flawed - the pacing is rather measured, to put it politely (most would call it slow), the magic mirror (a key element of the story and a great special effect) is forgotten about a third of the way into the story, and the central characters of the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) and Snow's childhood sweetheart, William (Sam Claflin) both serve the same role in the movie. This duplication of roles is further highlighted by the script's failure to resolve either character's personal journey.

And all that brings us to Snow White herself. Kristen Stewart may have the whole Twilight thing under her belt and is reasonably easy on the eye, but she is totally devoid of charisma in this movie - this is never more evident than in her "rousing speech" to her father's subjects hiding out in the castle of Duke Hammond (Vincent Regan).

She is supposedly whipping them up into a frenzy of rebellion against the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), but totally fails to sell it. I couldn't imagine an army following her to the supermarket let alone into battle against a powerful, magical foe.

That said, the film gave us a well thought-out back story of how the witch Ravenna usurped Snow White's father and took over the kingdom - even if we are supposed to believe that for the decade (or longer) that Snow was kept imprisoned, the lone rebel Duke Hammond - father of William - was able to hold out against the queen and her mastery of the dark arts.

When Snow comes of age (and thus the queen is no longer "the fairest in the land"), she escapes captivity and flees into the well-realised Dark Forest.

Ravenna summons The Huntsman to track Snow down, on the promise that she will bring his dead wife back to life if he delivers. Realising that the queen's offer is an empty one, the Huntsman instead helps Snow to escape the forest and head towards Duke Hammond's castle.

On the way they are captured by the seven dwarf bandits - who count a number of famous faces amongst them: such as Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Toby Jones.

And the dwarves are another strength of the film. Once you get over the initial shock of seeing such well-known faces on the bodies of little people, they are wholly convincing and wouldn't look out of place around the table at Bag End when Thorin and co pay a visit to Bilbo Baggins.

The dwarves then escort Snow and the Huntsman to their final destination, and play an integral part in the princess's scheme to get her kingdom back and avenge her father's death.

But of course the stand-out performance of the piece is Charlize Theron as the evil queen, who not only acts Kristen Stewart out of the picture but looks every inch the majestic evil sovereign, whatever make-up effects are piled on her to show the ageing cost of her magic.

There are even, early on, strong suggestions of an incestuous, Game Of Thrones-style relationship between Ravenna and her (twin?) brother Finn (Sam Spruell), but this, ultimately, being a children's movie that particular sub-plot also goes nowhere - although there is definitely a link of some kind between them as demonstrated when the Huntsman slays Finn.

Stylistically Snow White And The Huntsman is a visually impressive retelling of Snow White story, but the script has serious, basic issues that really should have been picked up during the film's development.

Underwater (2020)

What a year 2020 was for movies inspired by the works of the father of modern horror, HP Lovecraft.

First we had Richard Stanley's incredible Color Out Of Space, directly based on one of Lovecraft's stories, and now we have the undersea action-horror Underworld, which - although not based on any particular story - certainly has a very strong connection to his broad oeuvre of cosmic nightmares.

An unexpected earthquake disrupts the integrity of the world's deepest mining operation, almost seven miles below the Pacific Ocean, in the Mariana Trench, causing the structure to start collapsing.

The few surviving crew members - including Captain Lucien (Westworld's Vincent Cassel), engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart), Emily Haversham (Iron Fist's Jessica Henwick), Laim Smith (The Newsroom's John Gallagher Jr), and Paul Abel (Deadpool's T.J. Miller) - have to find a way to safety.

With the escape pods lost, the survivors realise the only way out is to go down to the sea bed and walk to the drill head, where there are additional escape pods.

Only, they soon discover that there is "something else" in the water, something from deep below the ocean floor, that has been disturbed by their drilling.

Underwater is a phenomenal action horror flick, with an all-star cast and a genuinely terrifying scenario.

Directed by William Eubank, who brought us 2014's brilliant The Signal, from a script by Adam Cozad and Brian Duffield, there's an old fashioned quality about the movie, in that it doesn't hang around before getting to the inciting incident.

In fact, it came so fast and without warning that at first I thought Norah was dreaming, but then I suddenly realised this was real, shit was going down.

I know Kristen Stewart can be a controversial figure in some quarters, but she is magnificent in Underwater, selling her role completely and making us really care about her fate.

If you only know her from the flaccid Twilight flicks, put your prejudices aside and enjoy her cracking lead performance here.

There's no avoiding the fact that Underwater presents its horror DNA loud and proud, with obvious nods to the Alien franchise (the control room some of the characters are first encountered in looks very Nostromo-esque), The Abyss (of course), and Pacific Rim, but also films like The Descent and even 1970s disaster movies.

However, what elevates it above all - and makes it my current contender for the "film of the year" - is the monstrous Lovecraftian aspects sown into the final third of the movie.

Nothing is stated outright - it would make no internal sense to do so - but if you're a fan of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos you'll know what's going on.

There are few better set-ups to a Lovecraftian tale than man poking his nose where it doesn't belong.

And even if you're not a Cthulhu aficionado, it's still one hell of a monster movie.

I can imagine Underwater will be a somewhat acquired taste, though, as the intense horror is heightened by the fact that for extended periods of time we - the audience - can't tell what exactly is happening, echoing the state of confusion and disorientation of the characters.

We just have to surrender ourselves, and accept that William Eubank knows what he's doing and will get us where he needs us to be to grasp the full-extent of the story.

The director is superb at maintaining the internal reality, the verisimilitude, of the dreadful situation the underwater scientists find themselves in.

And this obfuscation and vaguery only accentuates the Lovecraftian influences on this tale, with the protagonists stumbling upon indescribable entities whose motivations are wholly alien to them.

In my books, Underwater definitely demands repeat viewings and should be regarded as an instant monster movie classic