Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

A kickass R-rated movie based on the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. Wirkola, who last directed the undead army of the Wehrmacht in Dead Snow is in his element. Witch blood by the gallon, kids dying (a lot) and the “friendly" troll squashes heads like flies. Hansel Renner is a nice guy as always, just that they gave the poor guy diabetes and Gretel Arterton looks great. And they really like beating up on people with the audience in the theater egging them on. The head witch, Famke Janssen is also a fox. And the weapons mmm... every kid’s dream. Blessing a Gatling gun? Hell yeah! Mainly, don’t go into the gingerbread house. (03/02/2013)

Not convincing Gemma Arterton to show her tits is utterly petty of Wirkola and foreshadows other ills. Thought the direction, like Dead Snow, is total anarchy (meant as a positive) that doesn't particularly worry about time, space, sequence, or characters, Hansel and Gretel often fails in its guilty pleasure potential. That is to say, the main sibling duo don't sleep together, though it seems headed that way several times, no children die, and the violence doesn't cross a certain threshold. On the other hand, the unbelievably long and retarded monologues of the main witch, who still has all of her members even two minutes after she opens her mouth, which is grossly inconsistent with the characters' approach to anything else, are outrageous. The action scenes are somewhat reminiscent of a video game in their conception (the witch running away from Renner and throwing various adversities in his path that he must overcome; the girl at the stationary machine gun trying to mow down all the witches in front of her, who come flying in from different directions) which I have no problem with, but overall I'm sorry that a scene like the one with the Gingerbread Man in The Brothers Grimm was more WTF than this entire movie. (03/06/2013)

Brutal, crazy, effective and fun small-scale movie. On the other hand, it’s such a simple movie that it doesn’t really have a deeper message. The story has zero telling value and it’s all created for one single reason – to entertain the viewer – successfully so. Which is no surprise considering it has Jeremy Renner in the lead role of Hansel who has to inject himself with insulin because the Witch used to stuff him full of candy when he was a kid and now he’s lucky to still be alive. On the other side, there’s Gemma Arterton who got incredibly hot since Prince of Persia, which is thanks to latex, but also thanks to her cool lines and the overall toughness and edginess of both Hansel and Gretel. In any case, this was the perfect entertainment for 87 minutes. (06/06/2013)

The fairytale of the Brothers Grimm is quite different, in both the good and the bad sense of the word. Hansel and Gretel is a very brisk film with a likable cast, mixing wit, action and romance, and it's watchable in the end, but it doesn't dazzle, nor does it leave anything deeper (which is to be expected, but still). Örvarsson's music reminded me terribly of Sherlock (Zimmer as executive music producer) right at the beginning, which maybe bothered me a bit, but then it fizzled out. The plot wasn't bad, but I'm sure the overall theme could have been fleshed out more. That said, the primary purpose of the film was (probably) to serve up a crazy action-packed take on a fairy tale classic that was meant to entertain, which it did. In short, an average Hollywood film that stands out from the rest perhaps only in its approach and relationship to the source materia (06/19/2013)

Whenever I hear the names Hansel and Gretel, I immediately think of two kids with a penchant for unconventional architecture. This time, the title hinted at something bigger, and it delivered. Instead of the future sponsors of dentistry, we got a story about serial killers targeting lonely elderly women. But they weren't using methods from the times of the Brothers Grimm; no, they had an arsenal that even John Rambo or the Terminator wouldn't shy away from. For me, it was a funny, action-packed movie that charmingly juggled with human anatomy and didn't pretend to be anything else. It simply entertained viewers on the same wavelength. Clearly, I was on that wavelength for the second time, so I had a blast. Plus, I had an aesthetic experience courtesy of Gemma Arterton. / Lesson learned: If you're a witch hunter, real life might not be a walk in the park. 4*+ (02/20/2022)