Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters

Let's sit here for a second and appreciate that title. It's just too glorious isn't it? Inherently stupid maybe, but no less inherently awesome. Funny side note, many foreign posters have been used for this blog and the reasoning behind that is foreign posters on the whole are usually much, much better than American posters.

It's like the poster is trying to be 3-D

Not too much history to this one really. HGWH is coming off of a trend rather than a specific idea. Take a classic fairy tale and ramp it up to 11. Modernize it or actionize it, add some explosions and boom we have a pitch.

Our stars reaction to the script

Tale as old as time, blood that runs like... don't know how to end that. The story begins as the fairy tale does. Hansel and Gretel are taken out into the woods by their father and are subsequently abandoned. Stumbling around the forest cold and starving, our two siblings stumble upon a gingerbread house. They go in and are immediately captured by an old hag. Before they can be devoured in a delicious pie or whatever, they escape and burn the witch. Instead of this being the end of the story, Hansel and Gretel scour the world hunting and killing witches, but when a small town in coughcoughemberg comes under witch attack, the heroes need to discover their own past in order to overcome and old threat.

How do they... anything really?

To start off with, the 3-D is actually very good. That is to say fun 3-D not atmospheric 3-D. Blood, bullets and arrows come flying at the audience with some frequency. Doesn't justify the extra cost but if that doesn't bother you it's one of the better 3-D movies. The direction was decent throughout with lighting that is dark and moody which fits great with the film's tone. The effects are fun as a good majority of them are done practically. The makeup and design on the witches is especially fun to see, and you'll find yourself scanning through the crowds to pick out the different designs. The action scenes suffer from a touch of shaky cam but are actually fairly inventive and unique, being able to play with the witches powers and the siblings weaponry which is awesome in and of itself, though fairly anachronistic. Truly it would make a good drinking game to take a shot every time something appears in the movie that wouldn't be invented for another century. It would be wrong to call the acting good, but it fits in a movie with such a premise. Jeremy Renner is always a great action lead and makes a good counterpart to Gemma Arterton's Gretel who gives the best overall performance of the flick. Famke Janssen's villain Muriel is actually quite intimidating though she is non unique as villains go.

Digging.... for VENGEANCE!

In order to enjoy a movie like this, you have to go in with a certain mindset. If your looking for a blood splattered good time, this movie is great. The punchlines are funny, the action is great, the story actually takes risks now and again and the characters are classic. (In that they're from a classic, not actually classically good.) To make a comparison, this movie shares a lot with the tone of the 2012 film Iron Sky, a film about space Nazis from the moon. Let that idea sink in. Anyway, whereas that movie had a ridiculous premise too, it actually grew past it's original idea with messages about the current socio political state of the world. Hansel and Gretel on the other hand never grows past it's premise. It is what it is and that is a movie in which flying witches are sliced apart by steel wire strung up between tress shown in loving detail. It won't change your life, but you'll have a great time watching it.

Too cool for explosions I see

Go see it if you haven't seen a good R rated action flick in awhile
Rent if you don't want the 3-D gore
Skip if the idea is too silly too you

Notes:
 -The opening seen with the adult siblings is basically the Monty Python witch sketch played straight.
 -Twilight has forever made a woman calling out for "Edward" hilarious.
 -2013 and we still can't make broom flying look dignified.
 -Actually the movie's definition of a witch seems odd. They're more like the Evil Dead demons than witches
 -Seriously, there's an action scene with a Gatling gun. Oh the inaccuracies!
 -Is it bad that the movie makes us root for pre industrial revolution witch hunters? Is that questionable?

I saw another movie that day and... yeah...