Movie Review | Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

This year, sibling Hansel and Gretel from the famous German’s fairy tale Hansel and Gretel have to undergo a new adventure that is completely different from their classic narration. The siblings become witch hunters in a latest movie entitled Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters directed by Tommy Wirkola.

Following a recent Hollywood trend that turns every popular fairytale into an action-fantasy-adventure movie, the siblings in Hansel and Gratel: Witch Hunters have to engage in a vicious battle against the dark forces of evil that is embodied by dark witches.

The 88-minute movie starts with a narration of Hansel, played by Jeremy Renner, and Gratel, played by Gemma Arterton, that enter into a gingerbread house after they have been abandoned by their parents inside a forest. There, the siblings are nabbed by an old witch that wants to kill and eat them. However, Hansel and Gretel are somehow able to outsmart the witch and sends her to her death. Given the horrible childhood experience, the two decide to become bounty hunters whose specialty is exterminating witches. When hunting witches, they equip themselves with various types of weapons. Besides, for some unknown reasons, they are also immune to witches’ spells.

One day, the sibling is hired by Mayor Engleman (played by Rainer Bock) of Augsburg, Germany. Hansel and Gretel are tasked by the Mayor to find some children that have been allegedly kidnapped by witches. After a series of investigations, the siblings manage to find that they have to face Muriel (Famkee Janssen), a prominent leader of in the dark witch community.  They uncover that Muriel plans to use the children for a ritual that will make witches invincible creatures.

The movie, which was released in January 2013, seems wanting to follow the success of Tim Burton’s take in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and The Huntsman (2012).  Burton and Sanders strip fairytale narrative of the two movies and repackage them into interesting action fantasy movies. Both receive moderately positive responses from movie critiques and enjoy economical success. It seems that Wirkola hoped to repeat the success, if not critical than commercial ones, of the two movies.

In Hansel and Gratel: Witch Hunters, Wirkola has turned the sibling into ruthless characters. They do not hesitate to kill witch in any thinkable sadistic ways. They do not hesitant to kick, punch, shoot and burn witches. Nor do they hesitant to chop their heads or explode them into pieces. Therefore, the movie presents various contents of violence, which are inappropriate for by children. I am warning you, gore is pretty much presented throughout the movie.

The movie, which so far has only received 14 percent from Rotten Tomatoes, offers a linear plot that makes the narration easy to understand. The narration itself is also very shallow and pretty predictable just like typical action movies. However, in my opinion, the movie gives its audience enjoyable action scenes.

If you enjoyed watching gory movies or if you wanted to get some entertainment, then you should go watching it. I myself was not that wowed by the movie, which in my account, only gets 4 out of my total 10 points.