For this week’s review, I moseyed on over to the magic mirror hanging in my bedroom. (You don’t have a magic mirror? Shame.) I asked it: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what’s the most pointless sequel of them all?”

It replied with more than a hint of disdain, “Across mountains of dazzling visual effects, beyond the sands of jarringly inappropriate tone shifts, carried on the shoulders of three brilliantly talented but sadly misused actresses – there lies ‘The Huntsman: Winter’s War,’ the most pointless sequel of them all.”

Yes, the decidedly mediocre “Snow White and the Huntsman” (2012) got a sequel – and if you’re one of the few who thought it needed one, I would advise you to be very, very careful what you wish for (and maybe watch the first film again, but with your eyes open).

“The Huntsman” is such a poor sequel that it starts off as a clunkily narrated prequel, with Liam Neeson telling the story of Ravenna (Charlize Theron) and her sister, Elsa – erm, sorry – Freya (Emily Blunt), well before Snow White showed up.

Freya has an illicit love affair with a duke and ultimately gives birth to a daughter. When her child is killed, Freya concludes that love is never worth it, and she subsequently obliterates her lover with her ice powers.

That slip-up two paragraphs ago is fairly understandable; Freya is basically Elsa from “Frozen” with a (somewhat justified) mean streak, the notable difference being that Freya decides to brainwash children and turn them into an army of merciless killers in her spare time by freezing their hearts (or something).

All that slacker Elsa did was bring snowmen to life. (And build a castle, I guess.)

Anyway, Eric, the titular Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), is a part of Freya’s fancy new army, dubbed the Huntsmen. He falls in love with a Hunts(wo)man named Sara (Jessica Chastain), but Freya finds out about their romance, ordering Sara to be killed right in front of Eric.

Confused? Well, besides the overabundance of Hunts…people, this movie’s plot is chock-full of forced conflict, characters with very dubious motivations, and obvious plot twists.

Perhaps the best example (of all three) is Sara, who, after being revealed to not have actually been killed, simply can’t believe that an ice-power-wielding sorceress who shares a bloodline with the devious Ravenna was capable of using magic to trick Eric into leaving.

While that last bit is technically a spoiler, it’s painfully apparent that no filmmaker would throw away the talents of Jessica Chastain in the first ten minutes – which is unfortunate, because it means she has to stick it out for the whole movie.

Yes, Chastain, like Blunt and Theron, is wasted in this spectacle, acting herself silly and working up some real emotion while the dwarf characters, Gryff and Nion, crack nonsensical jokes behind her.

The only real function the dwarves seemed to serve was to make the tone as uneven as possible. When a movie features a pair of violent, emotionless sorceresses espousing the purposelessness of love, and then immediately turns to the Beavis and Butthead of the dwarf kingdom making lady dwarf jokes, there’s a serious problem.

Never mind the fact that “The Lord of the Rings” did that joke better and with far more tact.

At least Theron looks like she’s having fun playing the borderline-demonic Ravenna, but the movie’s unpredictable tone does her in, as well. It’s impossible to take her menace seriously when every other scene is loaded with cringe humor.

Essentially, the movie tries to be simultaneously dark and lighthearted, and the effect is as disorienting as riding a fast-forwarded Tilt-A-Whirl for 123 minutes.

As Freya, Blunt exhibits predictably strong acting, but looks out of place – although I suppose that could be the point given that her character starts off good.

Hemsworth is fine as the Huntsman, but like the aforementioned actresses, he’s really got nothing to work with from this script aside from grinning and saying, “You know you like me because I’m great.” I don’t think it was meant ironically, either.

If there are good qualities to be found in this film, one has to be James Newton Howard’s atmospheric, emotional score. The visuals are wonderful as well, and these aspects paired with such a talented cast makes one wonder what went wrong.

The answer, it seems, is that “The Huntsman” is a classic case of a movie made to make money rather than tell a good story. It’s a monument of wasted potential; despite having a veritable glacier of ingredients that could have made it great, the film’s story fails in nearly every respect.

“The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” rated PG-13, is now showing in theaters.

Like my reviews? Have a disagreement? Give me a shout on Twitter at @MovieMuseSean.