‘Snow White,’ despite controversies, is a serviceable remake

Some of the most charming scenes in Disney’s classic “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” take place in a little cottage shared by the eight title characters. As the dwarfs bumble about like motherless children, Snow serves as a civilizing force, teaching them manners, cooking their meals and tidying up. The 1937 film was the first-ever animated feature, and Snow became the first of many such Disney females — call them wife-mommies — including Wendy in “Peter Pan” and Lady in “Lady and the Tramp.”

Who would have guessed that the loudest objections to “Snow White,” Disney’s live-action remake, would come not from women but from people with dwarfism?

That’s where Disney, ever the culture-war punching bag, found itself. In response to early objections from the actor Peter Dinklage (who has dwarfism), the studio recast Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and the rest as computer-generated creatures of some sort. The reasoning, it seemed, was to avoid having short-statured actors play such beloved yet possibly offensive roles.

But as a result, this mostly passable musical — capably directed by Marc Webb, of the “Amazing Spider-Man” films — is severely marred by seven stiffly moving, slightly weird-looking figures who have little of the warmth or personality of their hand-drawn ancestors.

But wait, there’s more: The outrage lobby has focused on the fact that the Caucasian-sounding Snow White is played by Rachel Zegler, a Latina actress, and that the Evil Queen is played by Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress who has vocally supported her country during the war on Gaza.

Here’s an idea: Let’s judge them on their merits. Zegler makes for a spunky if not exactly fiery Snow, and lends her clear voice to songs such as “Waiting on a Wish” (not the passive ballad it might seem) and old favorites like “Whistle While You Work.” Gadot may not match Zegler in the vocal department (she sounds a little uncertain on the Queen’s theme song, “All Is Fair”), but she uses her statuesque beauty to good effect, especially when wearing her sleek, spiky black crown.

Kudos to screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (“The Girl on the Train”) for replacing the usual faceless prince with a charming thief, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap). He steals food from the Queen’s pantry, introduces a sheltered Snow to medieval Marxism (“I’m hungry. That’s my excuse”) and leads the film’s cleverest song, “Princess Problems.” (The solid new numbers are by the ubiquitous team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, with help from others.) Jonathan gets to be both progressive — he encourages Snow to take back her stolen kingdom — and gallantly heroic, a nice balance that few Disney males seem able to manage anymore.

But you’ll also have to spend time with the GCI seven, who are at best tolerable (the kindly Doc, voiced by Jeremy Swift) and at worst unsettling (Dopey’s huge eyes are both cloyingly moist and stone-cold dead). All that effort, and for what? After other actors with dwarfism objected to having roles taken from them, Disney wound up hiring one (George Appleby) to play a high-spirited rebel. Decades from now, will anyone remember what Disney was even attempting to do here? Probably not, but I’ll bet the 1937 original will still hold up.