Let’s be honest: we could use some new fairy tales. After all, passive princesses hardly reflect the modern mores of 21st century audiences. So “Snow White and the Huntsman,” a solemn but mostly savvy rewrite, is a welcome upgrade and a passable movie too.

As is so often the case, this story’s most fascinating character is its villain. After waging war on a wooded kingdom, the gorgeous and darkly magical Ravenna (Charlize Theron) marries its ruler only to murder him. His child, Snow White (Kristen Stewart), is locked away until the fateful day when Ravenna’s mirror proclaims Snow the fairest in the land. Her fate seems to be sealed when the youth-obsessed Ravenna learns that she can earn immortality by (literally) stealing her stepdaughter’s heart.

With help from a drunken huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) and a loyal friend (Sam Claflin), Snow escapes into the woods. There she discovers more aid in the form of some surly dwarves (Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones, Brian Gleeson, and Johnny Harris). But she’ll never truly be free until she vanquishes the evil Queen.

The classic fairy tale is re-told in a dark action adventure. The acting in the movie is very uneven because we have the good actor, the bad actor, and the amazing actor. The amazing actor (Charlize Theron) actually owns the whole movie and is a much better queen than Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror. The good actor is Hemsworth; as always he has to play the hero, just like in his recent films Thor and The Avengers. This time Hemsworth does not cut it playing the same ‘hero’ role. The bad actor is Kristen Stewart; once again her lazy acting does not really fit the part of a beautiful and fierce princess. As she plays Snow White Stewart doesn’t really put any emotion into the character. At least Stewart is better than Lilly Collins in Mirror Mirror. Between Snow White and The Huntsmen and Mirror Mirror, the best Snow White movie would have to be Snow White and The Huntsmen. There really is no comparison because Snow White and The Huntsmen has a darker approach to the original, whereas Mirror Mirror has more comedy to add on to the classic story. The Dwarfs were better in Snow White and The Huntsmen only because they didn’t look and do the same thing as what Mirror Mirror did; but the only problem I had with them was that they had names that you would forget easily. The ending was a letdown in that it left you wondering what’s going to happen next. Snow White and The Huntsman is a really good movie that proves that princesses are back, albeit with a dark twist. I give Snow White and The Huntsman an 8 out of 10.