Cole Wagner definitely had a battle during the production of "Moontoken: A Snow White Story". Some actors dropped out during production and the film had to have reshoots with some new cast in order to finish. As a filmmaker who was also put in a similar situation, I applaud the cast and crew who saw the production through. Finishing a film is never easy, that said, how did Cole Wagner’s first feature film turn out?

"Moontoken: A Snow White Story" is a Southern Gothic drama/thriller about a young girl named Vanessa who escapes her abusive household and is taken in by the Cursebreakers, a motorcycle club that protects kids from child abuse. Inspired by the folklore of Snow White, we have the bikers being the seven dwarfs and Vanessa is supposed to be Snow White. It takes a while for the film to find it’s footing as the film starts with us being introduced to the Cursebreakers. There’s a large cast of characters the movie tries to balance, and it isn’t until we get to a flashback sequence where the plot starts to find traction. The flashback sequence in question is how we learn of Vanessa’s backstory and see the films antagonists in action.

I feel like the film should have been structured differently, as in the opening scenes you see the Cusrebreakers finding Vanessa and taking her in. Then when we are in the flashback with her backstory, there isn’t much tension as there sure be since we know she makes it out fine. Which is a shame, as the flashback sequence is one of the highlights of the films. It’s more tightly focused, and has some intense scenes of child abuse being displayed. Near the end of the film, we have another flashback sequence for the evil mom (evil queen character) to help explain her motivation and explain why she talks to a mirror, but it comes to late in the story to have the impact that is should.

I learned that the film had an original run time of 4 hours during editing, which has been cut to a runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes here in the final cut. You can feel that the film tries to accomplish a lot and feels like it’s trying to be three films in one (or a TV series of sorts). There’s a romance subplot with Vanessa and Tiberius, one of the other kids saved by the Cursebreakers. There’s a long extended funeral section for a character who dies that we didn’t get to spend enough time to form a stronger bond. Moontoken is trying to juggle to much, and thus kinda becomes a jack of all trades.

There are some solid moments and ambition on display. There are brief moments where drawings and animation are mixed in with the footage, giving the film a cool look. The time jumping with different actors playing the same character is pretty impressive and works. The film’s technical elements don’t help you to stay immersed however, as a lot of the cinematography is shaky and mostly composed of close up shots. This makes the whole film feel catastrophic and it’s hard to tell where the actors are in any given space. There are a lot of scenes with ADR, but the sound mix is missing so characters voices are loud, but feel out of place due to the silence around them.

"Moontoken: A Snow White Story" displays all the hallmarks of an ambitious directional debut. The film is rough around the edges and has some flaws, but it does have a passion that carries it. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of my ambitions with Sophie and the Serial Killers. Hopefully Cole Wagner focuses in on a smaller and more focused idea with more technical polish on his next outing.

Moontoken, A Snow White Story 2025 (Plattorm Pictures / Souls and Legions) Review

A Magical Hammer Productions Update ~ Why Making Movies Is Hard!