Hansel and Gretal: Witch Hunters

Hansel and Gretal: Witch Hunters was a truly dreadful waste of 88 minutes of my life. I’d already heard bad things before watching, so I had low expectations, but I was unprepared for quite how bad it was. There’s always the hope, with a bad film, that it might loop back round and end up being so bad it’s good. This doesn’t.

We follow the now grown up Hansel and Gretal as they’re called to investigate the disappearance of 11 children, which turns out to be part of a witches’ plot. There’s a bit of back story about Hansel and Gretal’s childhood and that’s about it, plot-wise.

Gemma Arterton’s pneumatic Gretal pouts her way through every scene and Jeremy Renner just looks embarrassed, and I don’t blame him.

See? Pouting!

My main problem with this film isn’t the cheesy script, the contrived plot or the awkward performances, it’s that I couldn’t for the life of me understand who it was made for. It feels like it should be for kids, but with a 15 rating and lots of very gruesome and bloody violence it definitely isn’t for little ones! I don’t mind that Hansel and Gretal is stupid – there are plenty of fun stupid films but this was just a bit of a slog.

Score: 5/10

8 responses to “Hansel and Gretal: Witch Hunters”

It is stupid and ridiculous. I was surprised by a lot of the elements. I know the tale well from my childhood, and I kind of expected a certain degree of darkness, but I wasn’t prepared for it to mirror ‘Blade’ in terms of blood and gore. You’re right, who is this for!? After a while, I just enjoyed the action set pieces for what they were. Nice review.

LOL – this movie looks awful – thanks for taking this one for the team. Wirkola needs to concentrate on Dead Snow 2 and abandon this rubbish.

Laura O 03/02/2014 at 6:47 pm · · Reply →

Thanks for dropping by. I loved Dead Snow, so am looking forward to the sequel.
- theipc 03/02/2014 at 6:56 pm · ·
  
  I know – I can’t even wait : )

Darn! I can’t exactly explain why, but when I saw the preview for this film I thought it might be really enjoyable. It had the potential to be hilarious, I think. Oh well! I guessed it wouldn’t be much good, sadly. A shame since I think Jeremy Renner is a fine actor!