PHOTO BY GILES KEYTE / DISNEY

Disney dug deep for its latest cinematic exhumation, reviving its first feature-length animation. “Snow White” — the dwarves have been removed from the title, but they’re still here — attempts to update the classic film nearly 90 years later.

The result is almost certainly the worst of Disney’s “live-action reimaginings,” as the studio calls them. It’s a misguided and patently uninteresting pastiche of classic style and writing by committee.

In short: heigh-ho, don’t go.

You know the story, if only by cultural osmosis: Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is the kindhearted princess of a storybook kingdom. When her royal mother dies young, the King marries a mysterious, lightly magical newcomer (Gal Godot). Before long, however, the King vanishes under shady circumstances, and the new Queen takes over.

Snow White is kept hidden from the public while the village wastes away. It’s of no concern to the Queen, however, who has one abiding interest: Knowing that she’s the fairest of them all, as proclaimed by a magic mirror with the ability to evaluate the relative beauty of everyone in town. So concerned is the Queen that she bristles even when she’s told her actions aren’t fair.

You know she’s serious because even alternate definitions bug her.

In the early going, “Snow White” — directed by journeyman helmer Marc Webb and written by Erin Cressida Wilson — is uninteresting but visually entrancing. The production design team captures the classic Disney look quite well, making architecture and costume look like a childhood memory come to life. In color and shape, it works.

Unfortunately, the film stumbles on nearly every other level — especially, and fatally, the character design of those dwarves. The diminutive miners are rendered as horrific CGI creations, uncanny beings occupying a dark corner of the uncanny valley; every moment they spend on screen is off-putting (to say nothing of the problematic decision to create fairy-tale creatures instead of casting human beings with dwarfism).

The music is nearly as incongruous, as a slew of contemporary showtunes are plastered over the existing story. Aside from being generally forgettable, they feel completely out of place next to the surviving “Heigh-Ho” and “Whistle While You Work.” Those two are easily the most successful musical moments in the film — yet they can’t avoid sounding antiquated, given 90 years of advancements in pop music.

You can feel that a lot was cut from “Snow White.” At 109 minutes, it’s notably shorter than most of Disney’s remakes. Yet they didn’t go nearly far enough; whole swaths of the remaining film feel superfluous. Perhaps with even bigger cuts (including many of those songs), a quick fairy tale might’ve been somewhat satisfying.

Oh wait — we still would’ve had the monstrous dwarves. No, there was no saving this one.

My Rating: 3/10

Snow White is now playing in theaters.