Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

If you read up on the original stories for most fairytales, they're often incredibly gruesome, gory, sexual, disturbing, or just flat out weird. You can thank the Grimm brothers, two German authors with wicked imaginations and amazing research skills, for a lot of the stories (albeit the rated G versions) you grew up hearing.

Extra crispy

The movie gets off to a wonderfully dark start, with the two small children being left in the woods for "unknown reasons" (It's part of the story, just have patience for the movie). They stumble upon, of course, a house made of candy. The witch occupying the house is less than friendly, however. The children are captured and force-fed magical candy, and then escape their bounds. After stabbing, clubbing, and roasting their first witch, the children apparently decide to make this their hobby. With their parents missing and a fairly large chip on their shoulder, the children create a whole new career path. A few credit pages and a montage later, the children have grown up, killing witches all along the way. 

When you lose the first fight, get a bigger gun.

As adults, the two travel the world hunting witches with oddly advanced weaponry (Jeremy Renner loves his ranged weapons) and a mysterious immunity to the witches magic. They happen upon a town where children are being taken in larger numbers, conveniently arriving three days before a holy day to the witches. The town's sherrif is doing an abysmal job of finding the witches, wrongly accusing women and losing men to the search. The mayor hires the siblings to investigate the abductions and to try and find the children, assuming there's anything left of them. 

It's always nice to see characters that have flaws. It makes them more relatable. It's hard to get connected to a person who always does the right thing, who always succeeds in their missions. Hansel and Gretel does a nice job of showing the two improvising on their witch hunts, making mistakes, and having exploitable weaknesses (Apparently the candy that Hansel was forced to eat as a child basically gave him magical diabetes).

With the size of that needle, and the frequency of the injection, it's a surprise he even has any thigh left

Visual: 5 out of 5
  The witches look great in their true forms, very primal and evil in appearance. There's a large amount of combat gore (especially when the troll is involved) that is well done. The environment is also quite vivid, reminding me of scenery from The Hobbit or other fantasy settings. It fits quite well for a fairytale adaptation.

Story: 5 out of 5
  Flawed heroes, a memorable story from your childhood, cool action with guns, crossbows, and magic. There's even a couple of romantic hooks and a loveable sidekick.

Overall:
  Fairytale remakes are very hit or miss, usually divided by the amount of money the movie has to use. With this being a higher funded production, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters falls into the "hit" category. Definitely worth a watch.


Toodles!