The classic tale of Hansel and Gretel gets a new twist in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
Intended to be a sequel to the original fairy tale, Witch Hunters finds the siblings as adults. After their first encounter with a witch as children, the two have dedicated their lives to travelling the world as witch-killing bounty hunters. While travelling, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) find themselves in the German town of Augsburg and discover its citizens are being terrorised by a plague of witches. They agree to help the town, but when they hear of a mysterious witch named Muriel (Famke Janassen) and an evil ritual known as the Feast of the Blood Moon, they realise that this may be more trouble than the average hunt.
Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkhola directs the movie and, unfortunately, it doesn’t match his previous work. It lacks a clear vision and frequently doesn’t seem sure of what it wants to be or who it wants to be for. Unfortunately, the cast isn’t much better.
Despite being a good actor, Jeremy Renner’s performance as Hansel is greatly lacking. His acting feels incredibly distant and, throughout the movie, it becomes increasingly obvious how little he wants to be there. Gemma Arterton isn’t much more involved as Gretel, though there’s certainly a bit more effort coming from her. Alas, the screenplay severely cripples any effort she puts into the character. While still not delivering a high calibre performance, Famke Janassen took a different direction than Renner and Arterton by hamming up every ounce of dialogue she has. This acting approach makes her scenes easily some of the most entertaining and unintentionally hilarious portions of the movie’s 88 minute running time.
The weakest point of Witch Hunters is its screenplay.
Written by director Wirkhola, the entire script is bland and poorly put together. It’s riddled with bad dialogue, weak attempts at cool action one-liners, and obvious plot twists. Even the new ideas the screenplay brings to the table are poorly executed, leaving us only with possibilities that could have been interesting in the right hands.
However, Witch Hunters is not without a few good elements, particularly its visual effects. The majority of the movie’s visuals are done practically which helps them to mesh much better than computer effects.
The witch make-up and, in particular, the troll portrayed by Derek Mears are great to look at and are a welcome breath of fresh air in an age so filled with poor computerised visuals. The score, composed by Icelandic composer Atli Örvarsson, is also quite nice and unique.
An interesting combination of Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, and electric guitars, it complements the ridiculousness of Witch Hunters and remains consistently entertaining, even when the movie itself doesn’t.
Overall, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is exactly what you’d expect it to be.
With a 3 out of 10, the only people I could ever recommend this movie to are moviegoers who have always wanted to see a diabetic Hansel and his sister messily brutalising fantasy creatures.
