The Huntsman: Winter’s War review - a CGI-laden exercise in pointlessness

Snow White returns. Oh no, she doesn't. Snow White and the Huntsman was a minor hit in 2012 when legions of Twihards turned out to watch another supernatural fantasy featuring K-Stew. A sequel was promptly commissioned, then, just as quickly decommissioned, when Stewart's brief affair with director Rupert Saunders made global headlines and brought her romance with Robert Pattinson – the Burton and Taylor of their era – to an end.

Thus, we get this rather off-topic Snow White prequel sans Snow White and sans Stewart. Even if the film worked – and it really doesn't – its existence surely represents one of the daftest studio miscalculations of all time: without Snow White and without Stewart's fanbase, they have approximately nothing to work with.

Unsurprisingly, various industry veterans and hot-shots – Frank Darabont, Gavin O'Connor and Andrés Muschietti – walked away from this misbegotten project before it was kicked into the arms of Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. Who? What? Aren't you familiar with the second-unit director of Maleficent?

In the spirit of: Will this do? The clumsily titled Huntsman: Winter's War starts out as an evil reprise of Frozen, before introducing a Yellow-Pack Katniss Everdeen (the normally dependable Chastain sporting ill-defined bondage gear and an och-aye-the-noo accent), before turning into a quest for what no one quite calls the One True Mirror, before descending into the usual unintelligible CG madness in which Charlize Theron grows tentacles or something.

Various British character actors – Sheridan Smith, Rob Brydon – pop up as dwarves who use British swear words such as “bollox” and “piss off”. Every fight scene is fast-cut into a meaningless blur. Theron, who is onscreen for all of five minutes, can’t decide if she’s advertising a sex chat line or if she’s Emperor Ming. The potentially interesting clingy sisterhood “enjoyed” by her Queen Ravenna and her Snow Queen sibling Freya (Emily Blunt) is dumped just as quickly as all the other plot developments.

Hemsworth soldiers on – bless him – but he’s straitened by a poorly constructed romantic subplot. So years after he thought she had been killed, his warrior wife (Chastain) turns up alive with a diabolical accent, but she’s mad with him, then she’s not mad with him, then she might be mad after all? Roger that.