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The most significant change to the story finds Snow White (Rachel Zegler) reimagined as a woman of the people — a potential revolutionary whose exile by her wicked, queenly stepmother (Gal Gadot) isn’t just about her superior beauty but the threat she poses to the throne. There’s nothing wrong with this idea, of course, but instead of genuinely shaping the character as a warrior, she’s just mopey: a mode that submerges Zegler’s real and considerable talents beneath the lyrical platitudes of her many (bad) songs. (She’s the best thing about the movie; you want a SWAT team to burst through the screen and extract her for her own good.)

As for Gadot, she’s a disaster, lacking the dexterity and self-awareness required to stylize herself as a live-action cartoon (something Angelina Jolie managed far better in her turn as Maleficent). There’s no threat to this Queen, or pathos, or even campy pleasure; she’s a chore, and it’s clear the story has no idea what to do with her in the home stretch, which somehow scales back the action while drawing it out, interminably.

Given the real-life tensions between its two stars — which has spread to social media and is rooted in their differing views on the Israel-Palestine conflict — one would think “Snow White” might spark to life in their scenes together. Unfortunately, the filmmaking is so haphazard — evidence of those much-publicized reshoots — that it rarely feels as though the actors are occupying the same space, even when they’re literally side by side. Picking nits with the plotting or logistics of movies is a churlish pastime — especially when they’re based on fairy tales — but nothing about the geography (or politics) of the forest kingdom here makes any sense, and characters come and go at random.

The CGI dwarves are charmless creations whose engineering speaks to the contradictions — and confusion — at the heart of the project. Disney’s PR team has said that the decision to use animated characters was meant to push against stereotypes; meanwhile, hundreds of little people around the world are expected to protest the film for denying smaller-statured actors the chance to participate in a big-budget family blockbuster.

Of course, given the scope of the failure here, it’s possible — and maybe probable — that everybody involved would rather take the film off their resumé, anyway.