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The Huntsman: Winter's War | 2016 | PG-13 | - 3.6.3
A wicked queen (Charlize Theron) punishes her sister (Emily Blunt) for falling in love by turning her heart to ice. She then becomes the Ice Queen and creates a frozen kingdom when she discovers she can conjure ice and snow at will. The sisters wage war against each other, while the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) attempts to stop them. Also with Nick Frost, Sam Claflin, Rob Brydon and Jessica Chastain. Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. [2:05]
SEX/NUDITY 3 - A man and a woman kiss for several seconds and she removes his tunic to reveal his bare back and one side; they lie down with the man on top and we see the side of one of her bare breasts; the camera pans to the night sky and sex is implied.
► A woman wearing a deeply cut bodice reveals significant cleavage. A woman on a chair wears a short night shirt. Two women wear several long gowns with V-neck or boat-neck necklines that reveal some cleavage. A woman wears a leather tunic with an open V-neck that bares moderate cleavage and she wears tight black leather leggings. A woman wears a tight leather tunic. A few tiny sprites are nude front and back and have pointed ears, but no gender features. Dozens of goblins have no gender features and seem to be nude, but covered in thick tar.
► A man pushes a woman into a wall after she brings a knife to his throat, they caress each other's faces, and kiss for several seconds, and she moans as the camera cuts to the couple in a hot spring up to their necks, continuing to kiss. A woman brings a knife to a man's throat, he turns her and pushes her to the ground, reaches to caress her face, but she brings a shorter knife to his throat and he laughs.
► A man and a woman kiss briefly and a man and a woman kiss for several seconds. A man and woman kiss and embrace each other passionately for several seconds. A wife rubs her bare toes on the clothed leg of her husband. A close-up shows a woman's hand reach for and hold a man's hand.
► A man asks another man how new dwarves are made and the second man replies, "Usually by accident" and makes a gesture of his whole hand going into something invisible. A woman looks at another woman and says, "You're carrying his baby"; the second woman gasps not knowing she is pregnant. Three women in different scenes state that love is a lie, is a fairy tale, means only betrayal, and is weakness. A man says that he likes two men and a woman grins at the man and raises her eyebrows, as if a sexual suggestion has been made.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - A woman with metal talons on a forefinger and thumb plays chess with a man and when she moves to checkmate the piece flows with blood all over the chess board; the man gasps and whimpers and as the camera pans away, we hear him drop dead on the table. A woman sees huge black clouds and runs inside a castle to find her baby's crib filled with smoke and the child's father standing nearby is smudged with grime; the woman cries and screams in close-up, reaches out, and creates a shower of ice shards, killing the man underneath their weight as they cover him and her hair turns stark white. A woman kneels at a mirror, crying in a darkened castle room in which lie six dead soldiers with arrows sticking out of two of them and a trace of blood showing. A man and a woman argue and he asks, "Have you been true to me?" while holding a dagger to his heart; she refuses to answer and turns away as the ground around them freezes and a woman appears, hypnotizing the first woman and telling her to kill the man; the first woman shoots an arrow into the man's chest, then the two women leave with an army as men pull the arrow out of the man, who is lying on his back (he seems dead but revives with a gasp and finds the arrow stuck in a medallion on a chain around his neck; we see a large scrape on his chest behind the medallion).
► A battlefield scene shows large amounts of smoke rising above dead warrior bodies on the ground with arrow shafts sticking out of some bodies, and a little blood turned black as crows peck at one body and a wild dog sniffs another body; a survivor of the battle has bloody, raw hands. A battlefield scene shows bodies strewn in a clearing and a man walks through and has visions of warriors slashing one another and horses as the injured fall off -screen before blood can flow; the man pulls an arrowhead from a body and finds black gore and a large jewel on the arrowhead. An unarmed man and an unarmed woman are each surrounded by warriors in front of a castle; they both fight in extended scenes against warriors with long staves, swords, and knives, as well as kicks and punches (the man and woman's faces are bloodied after falling hard several times each). A cloaked figure cartwheels into a scene and fights four attackers, shooting an arrow into one man's hand (we see blood), cutting off the hand of another man (we see no blood), and stabbing three men (a bit of blood flows).
► A woman dips an arrow into the blood of a goblin, lights it on fire, and launches it into a group of tar-covered goblins, igniting them in tall flames; she sits down and cries (her face is bloody and we later see a gash on her shoulder). A huge goblin with horns and sharp teeth attacks a group and throws people into walls and trees; the people throw knives and axes that stick in the creature's body without drawing blood and it roars into the camera in close-up several times; one man does a back flip, grabs the horns, and snaps the goblin's neck with a crunch. People find black tar on a tree limb and three skeletons with black tar (it's goblin blood) on them; a man steps on arm bones (we hear them crunch) as a group finds a few dead goblins in a clearing. A man fights off attackers by throwing axes (no blood is seen) as other people cross a rope bridge, which the man cuts down. A man and a woman are led in chains to a room where another man cuts the chains with a sword and another woman squeezes the woman's face with her metal talons (it leaves no marks); tar flows out from under the screaming woman's gown and she makes spears from tar and throws them at people, some penetrating and knocking people off-screen before blood can flow. A woman embraces another woman and turns her face to frost as the second woman makes spears and tendrils of black tar flowing from her dress and throws them at people, impaling some without bloodshed.
► An extended fight scene shows men and women throwing knives and axes at a woman with tar weapons as she throws tar spikes at them; she fights another woman, changes to a flapping swarm of birds, then changes back to a woman, she chokes a woman warrior and lets her go; she makes a sword out of tar and stabs another woman through the shoulder and we see a red hole (the attacker turns to the camera and we see her pale face and black tar running out of her mouth and down her chin); the woman bleeding tar from her mouth screams violently into the camera and turns into a statue made of gold, then shatters loudly to the floor, as we see its head intact with its gaping mouth close to the camera lens.
► A man climbs a frozen rocky cliff, slips, recovers, and jumps onto the castle's tiled roof, sliding down and catching himself on the eave with his axe; he chokes a guard unconscious, fires a crossbow from a balcony at a woman, and another woman catches the bolt in her hand and then throws it to stick into a stone wall; another woman swings a staff and the first woman and freezes it, saying a man and woman must die. Several men fistfight in a tavern and break furniture and three men throw another man out onto the ground into the rain and mud (he spits blood out in close-up). A woman approaches a man on the ground as he rises and punches him unconscious; the scene cuts to a building where the man is awake with his hands tied together and he falls because his ankles are bound together; two other men are tied to each other in chairs.
► A man tells a woman, "I saw you die. You're a ghost," and they argue for several seconds and she is very angry, accusing him of abandoning her in a dungeon years ago; she holds a knife to his throat, drops it and pulls another knife, then punches him in the stomach and he gasps and grunts. Gold oozes out of a large mirror like folds of cloth and slowly rises up to form a woman who says that she is dead and not dead, caught somewhere between this world and the next; gold flakes off her and floats into the air above her head as she argues with another woman; the first woman says that she will tear out the heart of a third woman. An unconscious man is pulled into a castle hallway and put into a trunk, and then covered with a large rug.
► A room is filled with ice sculptures that were once people, now frozen, and a woman screams at a man for entering with a lit torch; he shouts in pain and holds his arm as the torch goes out. A man throws a piece of wood into a clearing and a net in a tree snaps down. Three men and a woman walk into a clearing and a net snaps them up into a tree; two women arrive as one of them points a crossbow and the other cuts the net down. About two dozen goblins screech and swing through trees in pursuit of several humans, tossing spears that miss.
► A woman orders warriors to steal boys and girls and train them to be warriors who can never fall in love and two scenes feature many children climbing out of a cage wagon, dirty and shivering. Men and women train young boys and girls to use knives, swords, axes, long staff, spears, bows and arrows, and cross bows; the children spar with other children and adults, using weapon, locks and punches; adults hit boys and girls with long staves, and they fall down (we see their faces smudged but not bloody). A man throws an axe into an owl, breaking it to pieces. A woman squeezes the chin of a crying boy and leaves frozen finger marks on the left cheek that last to his adulthood. A man slices into a straw dummy with a sword as a woman shoots an arrow past his nose into another straw dummy.
► A woman conjures an ice wall between a man and a woman and sends visions to each one; the woman sees the man run away in fear and the man sees another man stab the woman through the back, causing her to die as she leaves a long smear of blood down the wall and the man punches the wall and cries before another man slams a long staff hard into his head, causing him to lose consciousness. Fuzzy images of a horned goblin head, a woman with a scraped face, an old woman's face, and two warriors slashing at each other (no blood is seen) are shown in a shallow bowl. A woman conjures a wall of ice around another woman. We see a man's robed body being carried by soldiers on a stretcher into a room for a ceremony. Several men in different scenes present a woman with crowns of now-dead kings of other kingdoms. A close-up of a coiling snake in a meadow shows that it is made of turf and sod; a turtle is covered with moss and several sprites fly as tiny comets of yellow light.
► A humanoid figure draped and without a face speaks with a deep male voice that becomes deeper and demonic-sounding. A figure leans against a wall and rings in reverberation as it whispers garbled words. A woman says that she would like to kill two men with her knife. A woman places a feather mask over her face and her eyes become frost (she can see around the kingdom through a metallic surveillance owl). A bird spirit flies toward the audience.
► A woman creates a frozen kingdom and takes warriors on foot and on horseback there to live; a river and plants freeze as they pass and she rides a huge beast that is like a bear crossed with a snow leopard and it snarls.
LANGUAGE 3 - 2 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, 1 mild obscenity, name-calling (weak, crazy, stupid, buffoon, horrifying, ugly, spineless woman, wanker, wobbly shanker, harpy), exclamations (shut your mouth, hold your tongue, silence, are you out of your mind), 1 religious exclamation (God, No).
SUBSTANCE USE - A woman drinks an unknown beverage three times from a flask, two men drink from tankards of beer in a tavern as a woman pours a beer over the head of another man, and an open barrel of beer stands near tavern tables.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Fairy tales and legends, magic, curses, visions, competition, power, war, murder, greed, manipulation, truth, emotional pain, heartbreak, child soldiers, danger, determination, courage, survival, freedom, loyalty, relationships, love, redemption.
MESSAGE - Love creates strength and joy.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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