Movie Review: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) 
R, 1 hr. 40 min. 
Action & Adventure, Comedy 
Directed By: Tommy Wirkola 
Stars: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen and Peter Stormare 
In Theaters: Jan 25, 2013 Wide 
Paramount Pictures/MGM 

official website 

After getting a taste for blood as children, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) 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. -- (C) Paramount 

Witches, trolls, and Jeremy Renner under my bed… OH MY! This is a fun and entertaining movie. Yeah, it has some flaws, like convenient diabetes, but overall it is a sensory overload of action and snark.

I like the way they used the original fairy tale up to the point where the kids throw the witch into the oven, there's even a candy house. Then the movie takes it from there, adding a new twist as to why Hansel and Gretel were left and what happens to them afterwards. They become a pair of famous witch hunters, but Muriel the black witch (Femke Janssen) has waited a long time to get her hands on these two.

don't make her angry...

you wouldn't like her when she gets angry!

There is a weird mixing of time periods. The town has a medieval motif, but Hansel and Gretel have some pretty advanced weaponry like a rapid fire cross bow (yes, I want one) and a Gatling gun, as well as shotguns. And these two can take a beating! There is over the top violence and Hansel loves the “F” word, which is probably why it got an R rating, but we brought our 11 year old daughter (I know, parenting fail) and she LOVED it.

The witches are bad ass and fly on large tree branches, which I thought was pretty cool, but Gemma Arterton as Gretel was a little hard for me to believe. She is just too pretty compared to the rest of the cast and looked much younger than Jeremy’s Hansel, but I was able to overlook that once the action started. There were many predictable one liners, but they were still funny as hell and lots of visual jokes as well, such as old fashion milk bottles that have hand drawn missing children posters tied to them.
The theater where we saw it only had it in 3-D. I am not impressed with 3-D and don’t think it is worth the extra money, but if you enjoy that experience there are some pretty cool effects. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is a rocking action movie as long as you don’t take it to serious and is worth a matinee price for sure.

4 “don’t eat the eff-ing candy!” Sheep

Sharon Stogner (edit by Kalpar)

Prince of Persia, it cost money to see this?

Oh wait! I've seen this movie its called The Mummy! No? Ok, then its called National Treasure! No again? Ok, how about Indiana Jones Temple of Doom! No? Lost Arc?

I swear I've seen this before.....hhhhmmm *light bulb going off

Got it! Its because this has BEEN DONE BEFORE AND FAR BETTER THAN THIS!

Starting my actual review now, Prince of Persia directed by Mike Newell and staring Jake Gyllenhaal (jill-en-hall) as our hunky eye candy Dastan, Gemma Arterton (who could double as Data's sister from STTNG) as Princess Tamina, and Sir Ben Kingsley (not sure if I can forgive you for this on Ben) as Nizam.

I would like to take this time to point out that so far all these characters are of Caucasian decent, and 2 out of the 3 talk in this movie as in real life, with an English accent. I mean was this all Hollywood could come up with? Are we as a nation that afraid of seeing middle eastern actors on screen in the US? A debate for another day perhaps but for now, lets all say together...P-E-R-S-I-A. Say it with me now, come on guys, PERSIA. :)

I think the powers at be decided it would be a really swell idea to raid a halloween superstore! (ok I am totally guilty of that too) Throw a bunch of half-rate low budget wigs on these actors and just call it a day. Look now their Persian! I can hear it now, "Hey just pull out those cheap wigs for these guys Tom and get this movie made baby! Now action!"

Stunts in this movie were so freakin corny I was cracking up non stop, and the hits just kept coming. I mean of course every time you need an exact length of rope to jump off a roof while escaping the bad guys, it just happens to be there. I mean duh.

Jake, baby, your hot but honey your not that hot. I didn't buy any of it. No deal. Your acting sucked and your stunts were even worse. Was that really the best accent you could come up with? Give it up to your stunt double though. Just you stand there and look pretty sweetie. Smile and wave boys, just smile and wave. :)

Gemma, why don't you ever have facial expressions? Is it a medical issue? Come on. This was the same character from Clash of The Titans (which also sucked) and I am just not feeling it. Give me some depth in your work, be an actress. Believe you can fly! Believe you can touch the sky! *dang now i want to hear that song.

Alfred Molina played the character of Sheik Amar, a bad rip off of Jake Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. Sorry dude you just cant fill those shoes, Johnny's got it on lock!

Green Screen. Man on man this movie was over the top with the green screen action, you couldn't even pretend it was real. Fake and fake and shake and bake. And I have so seen this set at Epcot in Florida, walked thorough it in fact. Glad to know Disney spared no expense on this one. Ata-boy.

If by now your still unsure about my review let me spell it out, this movie bombed the big one. Pass it up and watch The Mummy, at least Brandon Fraiser is funny. Sorry you had to pay for this one V, I got you next time.

KD