''Snowflake, the White Gorilla'' ( ca, Floquet de Neu, es, Copito de Nieve) is a 2011

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

live action/computer-animated

adventure film An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, an ...

directed by Andrés G. Schaer. The film depicts the fictional childhood of the white

gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...

Snowflake A snowflake is a single ice crystal that has achieved a sufficient size, and may have amalgamated with others, which falls through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. ...

. An English dub with an unknown cast was released. In

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, the film was released on with another English dub of the film that stars

David Spade David Wayne Spade (born July 22, 1964) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, television host, and writer. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live'' in the 1990s, and he later began an acting career in both film and television. He also s ...

Ariana Grande Ariana Grande-Butera ( ; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her four-octave vocal range has received critical acclaim, and her personal life has been the subject of widespread media attention. She has received ...

Jennette McCurdy Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American writer, director, podcaster, singer and former actress. McCurdy's breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom '' iCarly'' (2007–2012) earned her various awards ...

Nathan Kress Nathan Karl Kress (born November 18, 1992) is an American actor and director. Kress began his career at the age of four, notably appearing in several television commercials and providing the voices of Easy and Tough Pup in the comedy-drama film ...

, Dallas Lovato,

Keith David Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956) is an American actor. He is known for his signature deep voice and commanding screen presence in over 300 roles across film, stage, television, and interactive media. He has starred in such films as '' T ...

, and

Christopher Lloyd Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and on television since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the ''Back to the Future'' tril ...

. It was produced by

Grindstone Entertainment Group Lionsgate Films (formerly known as Cinépix Film Properties) is an American film production and film distribution studio, headquartered in Santa Monica and founded in Canada, and is the flagship division of Lionsgate Entertainment. It is the larg ...

and distributed by

Lionsgate Home Entertainment Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered in ...

. The original Spanish version of the film portrays Snowflake as a male gorilla, while the English dub makes the character a female gorilla.

Synopsis

In 1966,

is the only white

in the world, and the main attraction at the

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological g ...

. Children love him (her in the English dub), but he's different from other gorillas. With the help of Ailur, an eccentric

red panda The red panda (''Ailurus fulgens''), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle ...

, Snowflake plans a secret mission to sneak out of the zoo, venturing into the dangerous city in order to find a

witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...

to help him become a "normal" gorilla. Will Snowflake find the

cure A cure is a substance or procedure that ends a medical condition, such as a medication, a surgical operation, a change in lifestyle or even a philosophical mindset that helps end a person's sufferings; or the state of being healed, or cured. The ...

he's looking for, or realize that there's something more important than fitting in?

Cast

Spanish cast

* Kai Stroink as Snowflake * Manel Fuentes as Ailur * Claudia Abate as Wendy *

Constantino Romero Constantino Romero García (29 May 1947 – 12 May 2013) was a Spanish actor and presenter. Due to his deep voice, he was most known for voice actor, dubbing into Spanish and Catalan other actors like Clint Eastwood, James Earl Jones and Arnold ...

as Anvil * Pere Ponce as Dr. Archibald Pepper *

Elsa Pataky Elsa Lafuente Medianu (; born 18 July 1976), known professionally as Elsa Pataky, is a Spanish-Australian model and actress. Pataky is known for her role as Elena Neves in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. She has appeared in the films '' Snake ...

as Bruhmilda the Witch

English dub cast

* Benjamin Nathan-Serio as Ailur

American English dub cast

as Snowflake *

as Ailur *

as Petunia *

as Elvis * Dallas Lovato as Wendy ** Eva Bella as Young Wendy *

as Anvil *

April Winchell April Terri Winchell (born January 4, 1960) is an American actress, writer, and radio host. She is prehaps best known as the second and current voice of Clarabelle Cow, having voiced the character since 1996. Early life Winchell was born in 1 ...

as Wendy's Mom *

as Dr. Archibald Pepper *

Diane Michelle Diane Michelle is an American voice actress, famous for voicing Daisy Duck in several modern Disney projects such as ''The Spirit of Mickey'', ''Mickey Mouse Works'' and ''Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas''. Early life Michelle is a Southern Ca ...

as Bruhmilda the Witch *

Vanessa Marshall Vanessa Marshall (born October 19, 1969 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is an American voice and television actress who is most active in films, cartoons and video games. She is the daughter of actress Joan Van Ark and reporter John Marshall. ...

as Female Newscaster

Music

The original score of ''Snowflake'' is composed by Zacarías M. and De la Riva. The American version features two songs, "One In A Million Girl" and "Avalanche" performed by Dallas Lovato and composed by Stephane Deriau-Reine (Stephan DeReine) and Mychal Simka.

Analysis

University of Chicago professor Elizabeth Tavella writes in an article on media representations of the original gorilla that the film presents an "overt representation of racialized tropes" including "problematic representations of reverse discrimination". One such trope is the "notion of Blackness arising from dirt", expressed when Snowflake tries to darken his fur with mud to be accepted as a "Black" gorilla by other gorillas at the zoo. Tavella further notes that in the English dubbing, "directorial choices have a drastic impact on gender and racial dynamics", with Snowflake being portrayed as a female gorilla and voiced by a white female actress, and the primary protagonist gorilla being voiced by a Black male, which "reinforces the correlation between sexism and racism". More succinctly, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' featured the poster for the film in a sardonic gallery about the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

Marché du Film The ''Marché du Film'' (french for "Film Market") is one of the largest film markets in the world.Marc ...

, stating that there was "something just slightly uncomfortable about this one". The film received a generally positive review from ''Cinefilos'' in Italy, for which the reviewer described it as "an adventure on the road through the streets of a very sunny Barcelona of the 60s mixed with the search for oneself", and found the story to be "linear and simple like the wishes of the little gorilla cub". The review did note that the primary human antagonist of the film was "a too-soft version of Disney's

Cruella de Vil Cruella de Vil is a fictional character in British author Dodie Smith's 1956 novel ''The Hundred and One Dalmatians''. A pampered and glamorous London heiress and fashion designer, she appears in Walt Disney Productions' 17th animated feature fi ...

". Spanish reviewer ''Videodromo'' describes the movie as entertaining for children, though stating that "the overall quality of the product is not exceptional", with the integration of animated characters into a live-action environment falling short of expectations. The review further suggests that children should only see it once, when they are young, because revisiting it at a later age will make them more likely to notice "poorly polished special effects or those laughable dialogues".

References

External links

''Snowflake, the White Gorilla''
at

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

* {{rotten-tomatoes, snowflake_the_white_gorilla_2013 2011 films 2011 computer-animated films 2011 direct-to-video films 2010s adventure films Spanish animated films Lionsgate films Direct-to-video animated films Animated films about gorillas Films with live action and animation Films scored by Zacarías M. de la Riva