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I am Snow White, hear me roar! That’s Snow White’s attitude in this totally 2012 version of the Brothers Grimm classic fairy tale, Snow White & The Huntsman.

Kristen Stewart, who stars as the warrior Snow White in Snow White & the Huntsman, opening June 1, has said that she wanted to play Snow as a “badass.”

And that’s just what she does. Her version of an empowered and proactive Snow White doesn’t spend a moment cooking, cleaning and keeping house for a bunch of dwarves. Neither does she idiotically keep letting an old woman giver her poisoned hair pins and an apple which she stupidly eats.

No, Kristen Stewart‘s Snow White realizes very quickly that if anyone is going to defeat the evil Queen Ravenna and take back her rightful throne, then it has to be her. She’s not one to wait around for Prince Charming to rescue her either.

Like the other courageous film heroine who stormed the box office this spring – Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games, Kristen Stewart’s Snow White is a leader of men… and other women.

Just as Katniss defended her fellow Hunger Games contestant, Peeta, Snow White even steps up to save the life of the Huntsman.

This is a saga about the power of pure good (Snow White) against complicated evil. While Charlize Theron as the stunning and deathly stepmother Queen Ravena, doesn’t elicit our sympathy, she does inspire our curiosity. There is a reason she has become so selfish, and beauty and power obsessed. You wonder if in some way she identifies with Snow White, at least as a child. If not – why didn’t she kill her immediately instead of imprisoning her for years?

Now, while I would have liked to know what Snow White did for all her years locked up in a tower – she had to occupy her mind somehow – Kristen Stewart is very believable as a young woman in awe of an outside world she has escaped into after only glimpsing it through a window for years.

She slowly gets used to the intensity of life on the outside and gradually warms up to the company of her pursuer-turned-protector, the Huntsman.

At one point he asks her why she hasn’t told him who she is, but it actually makes perfect sense. She isn’t used to talking. This is a Snow White who has grown up in total isolation and has to now readjust to relating to other human beings as well as to her kingdom, which has been devastated by the darkness of the Evil Queen.

But Kristen Stewart’s Snow White is a woman who quickly gets her mojo back and her best scenes, like Katniss’s, are when she takes up her leadership mantle and fearlessly gets into action battling for her life and more importantly, for what is right.

Both Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman who has a heartbreaking secret and Sam Claflin as William, the handsome and charming prince, generate love-triangle worthy heat with Stewart. But like the smart and modern heroine she is, this Snow White puts her career as Queen ahead of any royal romance.

We feel a sequel coming on!

Vote! Are you dying to see Snow White this weekend?

– Bonnie Fuller

More Kristen Stewart ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’ Reviews:

1. Critics Love Kristen Stewart’s New Movie ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’
2. Robert Pattinson Loves Kristen Stewart As Snow White
3. Chris Hemsworth: Kristen Stewart Is ‘Impressive’ As Snow White