After, they're abandoned by their mother and father, Hansel (played by Jeremy Renner), and Gretel (played by Gemma Arterton, the hot princess from Prince of Persia, and Clash of the Titans) find a gingerbread house where they come across an evil witch who nearly eats them to pieces, but somehow they outsmart her and end up burning her alive by throwing her into an oven. Years later, Hansel and Gretel are now witch hunters and are famous for all of their accomplishments. They're hired by the mayor of the town, Augsburg (a town in Germany) to find and kill the witch, Muriel (played by Famke Janssen) who has kidnapped several children from the town and are set to also rescure the children before Muriel burns every single one of them. And from there on, we have a mixed bag movie to say the least.
The performances in this film from the cast are certainly nothing special, but they're nothing bad either. Jeremy Renner, even when you place him into a mediocre movie, never gives a bad performance, and that's definitely no different here. He brings lots of needed charisma, and screen presence to the character of Hansel, and does a really solid job in the action scenes. It's by no means another powerhouse performance from him, but with the material he's given, it's a decent performance for sure. Gemma Arterton, who's amazingly hot by the way, thankfully holds her own for the most part acting wise beside Jeremy Renner, and the two do share some solid on-screen chemistry together. However, Famke Janssen who I have always liked as an actress, gives a very average performance in this movie. She plays the main antagonist, and there's some moments where her performance works, but then there are other moments where she just comes off as really goofy, and honestly not meancing at all. I would definitely say she's a bit too over the top in a lot of scenes, but then again that totally fits this movie which I'm fine with, but the moments where she's suppose to be scary or meancing, I didn't find her to be at all. I definitely prefer her as Xenia in the James Bond movie, Goldeneye. But, to be fair she's given a really cliched and weak villain to play. And everyone else in the movie, are not really worth talking about because they're really just mediocre.
The film's directed by Tommy Wirkola, and this is really the first big movie he's made here in America, and I could definitely tell that by watching this movie. That's not to say he does a bad job directing this film, because I really love the look and feel he gives this movie, and the visuals are probably the strongest element the movie has going for it. But, honestly when it came to action scenes, I thought the direction in them was pretty terrible with some really poor shaky cam that honestly made me dizzy. And I hardly ever get dizzy in a movie, even with terrible shaky cam. I definitely wasn't bored with all of the action scenes, I just didn't like the direction in them, and Wirkola just needs to know how to keep the camera still.
This movie is extremely over the top, and just beyond silly and ridiclous. And I completely understand that was likely what they were going for, which I'm fine with, but my big problem with this movie is the comedy and horror elements to it. Neither of them honestly worked for me, I hardly laughed at any of the attempt of humor, and even with the insane amout of blood in this movie, I never once felt scared, or creeped out by anything that was going on in this film. I thought a lot of the CGI and effects were beyond goofy, and it was honestly hard for me to take a lot of this seriously. Which leads me to another problem with this movie: the unbalance tone. At one point, this film was basically a comedy, and than another moment, it would just become so deadly serious, and just a really hard film to get into. The script by Tommy Wirkola and Dante Harper is very poorly written. It's filled with really poor dialogue (including poor attempt at humor), cliches we've seen in films exactly like this, and so many predictable moments. This movie is supposedly a twist on the classic fairy tale that we know, and while in some ways it is particularly with the blood, you can still predict everything that's coming, and there's absoutely no surprises unless you consider blood popping up at the screen to be great surprises. There's also this romantic sup-plot with Hansel and this woman, which you know exactly where that's going, and by the time the film ends, it felt like there was almost no point to that story. I will say though there is one nice nudity scene involving that woman who is hot, that guys like me will definitely enjoy. It's definitely something that you're not used to seeing in fairy tale movies.
But even with all of those complaints, the film isn't terrible. There are definitely entertaining moments to it. Like I wrote before, the visuals minus the CGI are really solid, the two lead performances are really good, and thankfully you do really like these two main characters, the bond they have with each other and you root for them so that's definitely a plus. I really did enjoy the opening scene in this movie, thought it was really well done, and for me the opening was the only attempt at horror that worked for me, and I did find it creepy. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but the 3D for this movie was actually really good, and definitely added to some of the scenes. The 3D definitely caught me off guard in certain scenes, and I actually think I would have like this movie less had I not seen this in 3D which I never say about a movie. So believe it or not, if you're going to see this movie, I definitely suggest you see it in 3D format. However, even if this movie is based off a old children fairy tale, definitely don't take little kids to see this film because it's insanely gory. In fact the blood in this movie was so over the top at times, that I literally said to my mom, one of the people I saw it with, that I felt like I was watching a Final Destination movie. Which could be a good thing, because despite how awful some of those movies are, they can be really creative when it comes to death scenes, but by this point it's already like "uggh I've seen that before in other movies, and I can't even say I enjoyed them in those other movies."
Overall, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is definitely your typical January film. It's got some really enjoyable moments in it, but it's brought down by a poor script, unbalance tone, mediocre acting minus the two leads, bad shaky cam, some really dull moments, and just some really goofy CGI. Again it's really not a terrible movie, it's definitely enjoyable in parts, and I wouldn't really say it's 11% bad which is the rating that it has on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's just not a good movie either. But, the film is just either too over the top in one moment, or it's taking itself to seriously in another moment. I can't really suggest that you see this in theaters, I would wait for the rental, but if you were really excited for this movie which I know a lot of people were, than I definitely recommened you see this in 3D, if you see this in theaters, because I think that would be the best and most fun way to see this movie. And I would say I enjoyed this a little more than I enjoyed Broken City, even if you really can't compare the two. 2.5/5!
FINAL LETTER GRADE: C+, 5.5/10
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