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The Ice Queen Cometh

Like a two-way mirror, "The Huntsman: Winter's War" is both a prequel and a sequel to 2012's "Snow White and the Huntsman". And it reflects poorly on those who made it.

The voice-over prequel introduces Freya the Ice Queen (Emily Blunt), whose broken heart has left her frozen on the inside, and whose resulting power can freeze others on the outside. She leaves her sister, Ravenna (Charlize Theron), to start her own kingdom in the north and build an army out of child prisoners. She also idiosyncratically forbids love.

The two best warriors grow up to be the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) and Sara (Jessica Chastain), who fall in love, and fall out of the Ice Queen's favor (what she does to them is cold).

Cut to the sequel "seven years later" and the Huntsman is tasked with tracking down Ravenna's mirror from the first movie before it falls into the Ice Queen's hands. He receives help (and comic relief) from dwarf side-kicks Nion and Gryff (Nick Frost and Rob Brydon).

You may wonder not who, but where, is the fairest of them all? Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is "unwell" and absent from "Winter's War", though is supposedly alive. Ravenna, on the other hand, returns, though is supposedly dead.

There is chemistry between Hemsworth and Chastain, which gives much needed life to the romantic comedy part of the sequel part of the movie. As Queen sisters, Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron are unfortunately upstaged by their costumes (and aggressive CGI).

All's fair in love and war - and this movie has both - which may explain why all plots seem fair game to screenwriters Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin. "Frozen", "The Hunger Games", and "Lord of the Rings" are just a few movies the audience will be reminded of.

Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, "The Huntsman: Winter's War" has a heart buried in it somewhere. But like the Ice Queen, whatever heart it has is broken.