Snow White modernizes its fairy tale around its winning star, but the classic elements flop—from the dwarfs to the Evil Queen.

In the new story, written by Erin Cressida Wilson and directed by Marc Webb, we are introduced to Snow White as a girl (Emilia Faucher). She’s a princess in a royal family that we’re told is magnanimous, more concerned with being fair to the people of the kingdom than “fair” in the sense of beauty, the obsession of the Evil Queen.

Rarely does one hear producers discuss their plans to remake “Casablanca” or “Lawrence of Arabia.” It took Disney many years of creating live-action remakes of its classic animated features before it worked up the nerve to take another whack at its first,