If you’ve seen the two previous trailers for Universal’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War, then you’ve pretty much seen this one, too. Almost all of the footage here was included in at least one of the two earlier incarnations, and a good deal of it was in both. (They really like that one shot of the little boy swinging his ax and turning into Chris Hemsworth.) What sets this one apart is that it’s a little more action heavy, and a tad less obvious in telegraphing every beat of its narrative.
This prequel to 2012’s Snow White And The Huntsman—co-written by Craig Mazin, one of the hosts of the screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes—is an adaptation of both the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen (which Disney also recently adapted as a little film called Frozen). We also have Hemsworth and Charlize Theron reprising her roles as the Huntsman and the evil Queen Ravenna respectively, plus Emily Blunt as an even angstier, non-animated version of Queen Elsa. And, just for the hell of it, they threw in a badass Huntswoman character so that Jessica Chastain would have someone to play. As you can see from the trailer, this story of two evil queens and the lovelorn warriors caught between them promises lots of kicking and jumping and shouting and shattering frozen people into ice smithereens.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War arrives in theaters on April 22.