The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016) Chris Hemsworth – Review

On the prequel front, we find that the wicked Queen Ravenna (Theron) has a sister named Freya (Blunt), a more benevolent (at least at first) younger sibling who is seemingly always in the eldest’s shadow. Freya ends up in an affair with a handsome duke and soon has his child, but instead of starting a new life with her, the duke destroys their future by killing the baby. The resultant grief Freya fees at the deplorable act brings out latent superpowers within her to control the powers of cold and ice, which she not only uses to get revenge, but, once leaving to form her own kingdom up north, she also aims to make use of in order to raise and train many of the children of the land to not only fight for her as “Huntsmen” (who don’t hunt?), but to also forbid them dreaded thing she was denied in life through the cowardly actions of her ex: love.

Two of the children in her Huntsman training regime are Eric and Sara, not only her best warriors, but also secretly in love with ach other. Knowing they can never openly live a life together as lovers, Eric and Sara, now grown, vow to leave their responsibilities and start a life together on their own, but Freya catches wind and forces a wedge, quite literally, between the would-be couple. From there, we presume, comes the events of Snow White and her battle with Ravenna, who ends up mortally defeated, and the rest of the film continues Eric’s story as he goes on the quest to find the magical mirror, which leads him to also discover that many things he believed to be true were merely deceptions.