AndrewBarthFeldman – Credits Rolling

Disney’s latest live remake offering comes in the form of Snow White, the first princess. In this updated version, Snow White (Rachel Zegler) was forced by her evil stepmother (Gal Gadot) to become a servant after the death of her parents. When she learns of the Queen’s plans to kill her, she flees and teams up with some dwarves and bandits to liberate her kingdom.

There has been much controversy surrounding this film. Casting choices and misuse of CGI hindered people’s opinions long before the release. To be completely honest, I didn’t think the film was as bad as everyone was expecting it would be. There were some things I enjoyed, but it ultimately fall flat.

Zegler was born to play Snow White. She certainly looked the part and she has the singing chops to boot. I loved how they gave our heroine more of a backbone too. Additionally, the prince wasn’t even really a prince. Instead, he was a bandit by the name of Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) who has a properly fleshed out character. The romance between the two was actually warranted and they had great chemistry.

Unfortunately I cannot say I was sold by Gadot’s performance. She’s stunning, don’t get me wrong, and she rocked those costumes. I just didn’t think she was convincing enough as such a menacing villain. Her song wasn’t impactful and she doesn’t have the best singing voice, not to mention the fact that her transformation into the creepy old woman wasn’t as scarring as the animated version (that used to give me nightmares as a child). I also can’t leave out the CGI dwarves who of course caused so much controversy behind the scenes. I’m not sure why Disney made this particular choice. Dopey (Andrew Barth Feldman) may have been cute, but I still don’t think this was the right call.

Overall, Snow White wasn’t completely awful, but it wasn’t a home run either. I wasn’t surprised with the updates to story and for the most part I thought they made sense. It added depth to some of the characters. I also liked the new songs. However, it did lack that Disney magic that was evident in 2019’s Aladdin and 2015’s Cinderella.

Rating: ♥️♥️.5

No Hard Feelings follows Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) who has recently been down on her luck. She’s behind on payments for the house her mother left her and her car is towed right when summer season is ramping up and she’d otherwise be making bank driving for Uber. Stumbling upon a Craigslist ad placed to hire a date for socially awkward Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), Maddie thinks her prayers will be answered. Turns out she couldn’t be more wrong.

This is hands down Lawrence’s film. She is magnetic as our leading lady. I don’t think I have seen her in a comedic role before, but her timing was so on point and I also thought the physical comedy was well done too. She should explore this avenue more in the future.

What makes the film work so well is the friendship that develops between Maddie and Percy. Though it may start off as a business deal, it doesn’t stay that way for very long. As the two get to know each other, the layers are peeled back and they begin sharing tidbits no one else knows. The arcade date was one of the cutest movie montages I’ve seen in awhile. It really helped that Lawrence and Feldman had such natural chemistry.

This type of humor usually isn’t my cup of tea, but even I couldn’t hold back my laughter. All the jokes landed thanks to a well executed script. Some of the scenarios were also over the top and while that would usually bug me, it did the opposite here.

I walked into No Hard Feelings thinking it’d be an average at best raunchy comedy. What I got instead was a story that wasn’t afraid to go deep when it needed to while perfectly balancing the laughs. I’m glad I gave it a chance!

Rating: ♥️♥️♥️