“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is exactly what you think when you read the title. Old and new thrown into a mess of a movie. Everything from the beginning is just a hyped headache and any actor associated with this film should be embarrassed, especially Jeremy Renner. I mean he had Marvel’s “The Avengers” going for him; why would he do this to himself?
“Hansel & Gretel” starts off its terrible tale with fluffed melodramatic bits of the German fairy tale. Brother and sister, Hansel and Gretel are lost in the woods when they find a house made out of candy. Due to their lack of manners, the siblings enter the house uninvited and find themselves not in a house of deliciousness, but in the house of a witch. A rather loud and extremely over the top ugly witch that they somehow wind up killing by pushing into her oven where she was planning to bake the children. The siblings then escape and decide that they’ve found the right career path: witch hunting.
More “twists” and “surprises” are thrown in for violent and dramatic reasons. Why have their parents left them and where are they? Who’s the witch taking all the children in their old town? And my favorite, why is it that everyone but Hansel and Gretel have a fake accent? Is everyone supposed to pretend to be German but them?
Though these questions are mind blowing and original, it is not enough to save the movie. The story line is too generic, the brother and sister relationship is too awkwardly close and the weaponry can not be possible. Sorry to break it to you but it just really can’t be possible that they have such advanced ammunition in a German town set in the late 1800’s. Sorry.
Even the costume and makeup is too exaggerated and silly. Most of the witches in “Witch Hunters” look like the goth kids that would torment your old high school.The acting is also too out there for a period film like this. The script is filled with unnecessary cursing that was obviously thrown in there to make Gretel, played by an unfortunate Gemma Arterton, look like an ass-kicking, hot female character. You know, ’cause Hollywood doesn’t have enough of those.
The creators of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” have taken advantage of today’s naive desire for classics being turned into CGI-infested action films. Though “Witch Hunters” is an attempt at coolness, it makes me wish I was reading the original tale instead.