Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
After getting a taste for blood as children, Hansel and Gretel have become the ultimate vigilantes, hell-bent on retribution. Now, unbeknownst to them, Hansel and Gretel have become the hunted, and must face an evil far greater than witches... their past.
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19 films that influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
What critics say influenced Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
With its anachronistic weaponry, horror themes, and references to well-known stories, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is most reminiscent of Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing.
Stephen Sommers's Van Helsing was almost universally panned upon its release in mid-2004, but looking back now, the rhetoric surrounding its critical impalement reads as oddly dated: Rex Reed, in a review typical of its broader reception, called it "a noisy, nasty and repulsive video game-slash-theme park haunted-house ride," all but heralding its arrival as the death of a more sensible cinema.
Last year's movie version of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter didn't exactly blow the roof of the multiplex, nobody really remembers The Brothers Grimm, and the less that's said about Stephen Sommers' insufferable Van Helsing experiment, the better.
Think Army of Darkness rather than Van Helsing , an R-rated version of the famous Brothers Grimm tale that’s a bit of ridiculous fun.
They were shooting for sort of a witch hunting “Zombieland,” an f-bomb riddled “Van Helsing” packed with comical anachronisms – a Bavarian forest past with witch trials, pump shotguns and primitive tasers, where bottles of milk have woodcut pictures of “Missing Children” on the labels.
For one, it's not outrageously dumber than its revisionist folklore-themed predecessors "Van Helsing," "Red Riding Hood" or TV's "Once Upon a Time," and it's far more goofily violent.
I don't know if the end result qualifies as "horror," but whether your tastes run to gratuitous head stompings, f-bombs, naked redheads (well hello there, Pihla Viitala), or overt Army of Darkness references (the first witch encountered is a dead -- pun intended -- ringer for the "You shall die!" Deadite in Lord Arthur's castle, while the pair's Augsburg entrance heavily apes Ash's "primitive screwhead" speech), you'll probably find something that agrees with you.
And like Ash from Army of Darkness, Hansel and Gretel have a penchant for modern phrases and profanity.
Think Army of Darkness rather than Van Helsing , an R-rated version of the famous Brothers Grimm tale that’s a bit of ridiculous fun.
(He clearly hasn’t seen Paint Your Wagon).
There are elements of the fairy tale; action punctuated by liberal amounts of blood and gore, and one effect borrowed from "The Matrix"; witches transplanted from a horror movie; a forbidden love; a King Kong-esque subplot; and two lead characters who sound like they were beamed in from 21st-century America.
Hansel and Gretel arrive as if two characters from “The Matrix” were dropped into 17th-century Heidelberg; they are leather-clad and carry massive guns and sassy attitudes that don’t win them points with the wicked sheriff (Peter Stormare, who is off to a bad start in 2013, also starring in the abominable “ The Last Stand ”).
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I'm not exactly sure who decided that action, horror, fantasy, and light comedy were a good mixture for box office success, but it seems like Tim Burton's 1999 rendition of Sleepy Hollow was just a bit more influential than one might think.
Wirkola makes the most of the 3D technology; there haven’t been as many deadly weapons flying at the audience since the era of It Came From Outer Space.
Arterton in particular steals the film as a strong, thoughtful, formidable action heroine who, yes, is eventually victimized, but at the very least kicks her own fair share of ass and only gives the time of day to a guy who, by all rights, could have been one of the trolls in Ernest Scared Stupid.
On the other hand, if you want random cornball lines about porridge that’s “not too hot and not too cold, but just right” — more appropriate for a direct-to-video Shrek sequel — and a CGI troll who comes off as the love child of Fezzik from The Princess Bride and the Rockbiter from The Neverending Story, then there are ways to make an entertaining yet still darkly toned fantasy film for all ages (and for the ages).
The blend of fairy-tale sentiment and knowing irony worked exactly once, in The Princess Bride, and fails here.
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Renner, meanwhile, making a run at holding the most franchises at one time (“Mission: Impossible,” “Bourne,” “Avengers”), keeps up his credible mix of physicality and presence.
Best guess: Befuddled by weapons-heavy acting roles in Mission Impossible, The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy, Renner thought he was doing pickup shots for an earlier movie.
If you’re going to make an edgy, violent, twisted and categorically adult version of Hansel and Gretel, you should go all the way — well, maybe not as exploitative as the fairy tale-inspired Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby, but something with balls.