'Snow White and the Huntsman' Trailer Somehow Looks Way Better Than You'd Think

Yesterday's colorful-yet-gothic poster and this first trailer's eagerness to boast of coming "from the producer of Alice in Wonderland" really makes it seem like Universal would love for us to believe Snow White and the Huntsman is a fanciful morsel left dangling off Tim Burton's ass after he crapped out his Lewis Carroll adaptation. And it's a shame, that, because the actual visuals contained in this trailer are astoundingly better than the studio's cowardly, Burton-dingleberry scenario imply.

While Relativity Media's competing Snow White project appears to be taking the story pretty much at face value--even casting actual dwarves as the seven dwarves--Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders and Drive screenwriter Hossein Amini seem to have made some actual, interesting choices with their adaptation, transforming the fairy tale story into a beautiful nightmare and kindred spirit to Return to Oz. Charlize Theron's evil queen inhales souls like she's doing a Mortal Kombat fatality! Kristen Stewart's Snow White encounters massive woodland creatures that look like something between a Shadow of the Colossus monster and Superman's Doomsday! The magic mirror has been personified into what appears to be Guillermo del Toro's droopy rendition of Silver Surfer! This is clearly the Snow White movie to beat, other Snow White movie.