Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Runtime: I saw the unrated version that's 97 minutes

Directed by: Tommy Wirkola

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Pihla Viitala, Thomas Mann

From: Paramount/MGM

Exactly what I expect from a movie where two of the (many) producers are Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.

This seemed to be the logical progression for viewing right after checking out Gretel & Hansel. Even more so than expected, this was diametrically opposite from that. While the Oz Perkins joint was moody and arthouse, this is a LOUD and in your face movie where especially in unrated form, there are some tremendously over the top gore moments, anachronisms all over the place, plenty of foul language, and attempts at humor which don't always land.

The script is simple enough: the famous duo survive the evil witch and in fact from that point become witch hunters, killing hundreds of them over the years. Famke Janssen concocts a scheme where after a ritual under a blood moon, her kind will apparently become invincible forever. Along the way there are evil sheriffs, fanboys, a kind ork and Hansel has diabetes, which is only a minor plot point; really. The tone is rather farcical; after all, there are plenty of jokes-only some of which work-and the heroes sometimes wield weapons from an arsenal that are more appropriate for Rambo rather than Germany back a few centuries ago.

Despite how dopey this is, I can still prescribe a “fine” rating to this slice of cheese. At least they went all-in on this story gone haywire and it moves at a rapid pace. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as the siblings work rather well together, and Peter Stormare appropriately hammed it up as the evil sheriff. The ork character was brought to life via practical effects... which was a good idea considering some of the CG can accurately be described as “shoddy”; thankfully there was a decent amount of practical instead of lousy computer graphics... and this wasn't seen in 3D.


This is pretty stupid yet will be crowd-pleasing for some and I am sure the unrated cut is greatly preferable to the R-rated version, especially if you want to see over the top gore.