Though the tale of two young siblings and a gingerbread house seems sweetly innocent at first glance, the newly released R-rated Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is anything but.
Director Tommy Wirkola has transformed the classic story that warns children away from strangers into a supernatural bloodbath.
Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, who play Hansel and Gretel, both deliver convincing performances. Moments of awkwardness bring reality back into the theater, including an occasional forced F-bomb dropping by Arterton and a few dangerously incestuous scenes. Besides these, however, the success of the unrealistic script is owed entirely to the acting.
The laundry list of flaws in this film is endless. The script is cliché, the feeble attempts at comedy fall short, the plot twists are subpar, and the list goes on. Initially the movie feels like it was the last of the Grimm Brothers fables left untouched by Hollywood, finally produced for lack of a better alternative.
It is easy to get stuck on the problems with this movie, but doing so risks missing all of the great things about it. The medieval setting is stunning with naturally rich colors, and the special effects have moments of brilliance. Nearly every character in this movie serves a purpose, and three of the four most formidable characters in the film are women.
The movie begins with the famous story of Hansel and Gretel being lured into a mysterious home by the promise of candy, only to become slaves of a cannibalistic witch.
Gretel outsmarts the witch by sending the sorceress into her own oven to be burned alive. This experience sends the two orphans down a new career path, and the movie follows their adult lives as bounty hunters, taking down witches all over the world.
Now machine-gun-loving workaholics, the siblings are called to a town experiencing frequent kidnappings. The two face a much more complex witchhunt than ever before, and must destroy nearly all of the witches left in existence by the upcoming Blood Moon to prevent them from gaining even more power.
By this point, the two have become wonderfully badass in their unorthodox orphan-hood. Still, Gretel retains enough softness to add charm to her feminist killer vibe, and Hansel’s sarcasm makes him lovable despite the obvious chip on his shoulder.
The siblings’ deadly and bloodthirsty reputation makes the movie’s magical setting believably foreboding, and the overused formula used in zombie-killing movies successfully adopts a new sparkle. The witches are as enjoyably grotesque as the witch-hunters are fearsome, and the fact that they all originated from a gingerbread house fades away.
A good amount of the 88-minute run time is spent featuring the gruesome murders of witches and humans alike. The weapons and tactics get increasingly inventive and gory, a highlight being when a witch flows into a wire barrier and is cut to fleshy strips.
For fans of outlandish gore and bloodshed, Hansel & Gretel shouldn’t disappoint. Once the body count has reached an absurd height, the plot thickens, revealing personal ties between the characters that alter the original Grimm Brothers tale.
In many scenes, the script fails to bridge the gap between the plotline and the childish setting, but this can be expected given the origin of the story. Given a plot that begins with kids and candy, the director has successfully neutralized the childishness of the story line with frequent sex and blood.
Though both siblings have romantic encounters throughout the film, they are far more interested in ripping limbs off witches. Because of this, the movie appeals to a very specific audience. Its lack of happily-ever-after love risks turning off the typical fans of fantasy films, and the fantasy aspect could turn off action lovers. Those who like both the fantastical and the excessively bloody should love this movie as much as I did.