Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters takes the infamous fable of a brother and sister lured in by a witch and expands on what the two siblings do after it. As a result we have a fun, gory, violent R rated fairy tale that’s a lot of fun to watch even in 2D. The story is simple Hansel and Gretel take up the profession of witch hunting. As we see the two sleigh witches in action packed scenes that usually end in a very violent death for the witch.

They stumble upon a village devastated by the abduction of their children. With the village accusing witches, our hero’s nab a job on finding the witches and saving the children.

The action scenes in this film are stylized to a certain degree. This keeps the energy up as the films pace is quick cutting. This film does not need to be seen in 3D at all, in all honesty, there are probably 3 or 4 scenes that are 3D’ed when something just points at the screen. The graphic violence and its mean spiritedness is what helps this film propel itself from other re-imagining fables like Snow White and The Huntsmen or The Brothers Grimm. Heads explode, witches get hacked to pieces, some one gets shot they spray blood.

The acting is pretty solid for this kind of film. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are believable as a brother sister duo and each hold their own when playing off each other. Everybody has been praising Derek Mears as Edward the giant troll but he acts like every other troll we have seen. Granted I wish he was in the movie longer but that’s what sequels are for.

Everybody else is run of the mill, the witches are cool and the actresses and actors all do a passable job in the end.

At the end of the day it’s a fun violent action packed fantasy horror film that is better than it has any right to be.  

3 out of 5