Gal Gadot Is A Wonder No More As She Draws Career-Worst Reviews For ‘Snow White’

Normally, a pop-culture anniversary is an opportunity for appreciation, whether obvious or obscure, sincere or ironic. But no one involved with Gal Gadot’s celeb-packed “Imagine” round-robin Instagram post could have been pleased to see it recirculated for a fifth anniversary that also, of course, coincided with the fifth anniversary of the COVID semi-lockdowns that inspired it. It’s a perfect storm of crap for Gadot, who is receiving a torrent of new, terrible notices for her acting (and singing!) in Disney’s Snow White remake. (Rachel Zegler was taking the most fire pre-release, but she carries the movie. Gadot, to put it politely, does not.) It’s part of a broader downturn for Gadot’s career that feels like simultaneous confirmation and rebuke of her stardom.

There’s always been something larger-than-life about Gadot, and not just because she’s extremely tall. Her filmography consists almost entirely of studio movies; her feature debut was a Fast & Furious fourquel, and has mostly played either superheroes, super-agents, or super-criminals ever since. When she was cast as Diana Prince for the then-nascent DCEU, she came across the role of a lifetime, leading to a wonderful lead performance in 2017’s Wonder Woman that brought warmth, romance, and earnest badassery into the DC movie universe just when it was needed most. (The first Wonder Woman remains the biggest-grossing of that DC cycle in North America.)

As with Christopher Reeve and Superman, it was a perfect, almost uncanny match between impossible role and highly specific performer. That is to say that Gadot’s range is not chameleonic. She’s more of a vibe than range-y, do-anything performer, and that’s perfect for Wonder Woman, who emotes, yes, but more importantly emanates: strength, goodness, honesty, and in that first movie, a touch of otherworldly naiveté. This might sound condescending, but it’s the kind of part where a traditionally great actor isn’t always as impactful (or, frankly, interested in playing a demigoddess).

What happened after Wonder Woman was not entirely Gadot’s fault. She joined up with Dwanye Johnson and Ryan Reynolds to do some starry throwback-caper shtick in Red Notice; the movie doesn’t really work, but it’s not a bad idea of what to do with anyone involved. (The trick is, you have to do it well.) She tried to start her own Netflix franchise with the spy picture Heart of Stone; she offered enough memes to fill the Nile in Death on the Nile. And she reprised Diana in Wonder Woman 1984, before the DCEU franchise imploded and took a planned third movie with it. WW84 itself felt like a pandemic casualty, premiered in half-closed theaters during Christmas 2020 as it premiered on HBO Max, ripe for snark-watching. If anything, the sequel is even squishier and more emotive, more evocative of the old Superman movies, than its predecessor; I have a soft spot for it, not least because it’s one of the only contexts where Gadot’s glamorousness feels vulnerable.

In theaters during normal times, WW84 probably would have done $250 million domestic just for existing; during the pandemic, it felt more like a companion to that “Imagine” video. Truly, is the “Imagine” video the root of all Gadot’s ill? I mean, not all; her vocally unwavering support of her home country of Israel will never sit well with some people, understandably. But that video has it all: cluelessly privileged calls for unity in times of disaster that a wealthy actress/model is well-equipped to weather better than most; a lack of any firm reason for being, much like an expensive Netflix lark; and off-key warbling, which figures into a surprising number of her performances.

In that sense, Snow White celebrates that “Imagine” anniversary with a whole passel of Gadot-isms: She overacts without ever seeming especially scary or even human, she repeatedly telegraphs her evil by shtickily arching a single eyebrow, she speak-sings without much conviction, and she generally plays the Queen as a poor man’s version of what Charlize Theron was doing with the same role back in 2012. Some early word on the performance hinted that it might be an all-time train wreck; no such luck, really. She’s just overdoing it in kind of an amateurish but predictable way.

By default, Snow White will almost certainly represent Gadot’s biggest box office hit since her DCEU days, while also assuring that she comes out of it looking worse. It seems like this DC reboot could materially harm both her and Jason Momoa, another actor of limited range who tapped into a real movie-star charm in a superhero role (and had a sequel that was not as good but still sort of underrated). Their DC work has a light-stepping bigness that perfectly balances that universe’s godlike grandeur and inherent silliness – a fine counterpoint to the idea that superhero movies can’t make stars. The problem, really, is that they can just as easily unmake them, stripping them of power when they’re forced to return to the surly bonds of earth. It’s common to call Gadot wooden, and I’d agree with that to the extent that a tree is wooden: Impressive, tall, beautiful, but not exactly easy to pivot. Gadot will doubtless try; she seems to be on board for a Fast & Furious finale resurrection, and no one achieves her level of fame without fighting to hang on to it. But she may have to imagine a smaller world in order to do it.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.