Try to combine the appeal of adults watching a childish fairy tale and children watching a bloodbath, and it’s easy to realize why a movie such as “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” could never work. The movie contained an abundance of blood and violence, but it was unrealistic and distracted me from its lame excuse for a story line.
For mild fantasy fans like myself, H&G had unlimited potential for cleverness. The movie practically begs to become an action-comedy after the two young children lock their first witch in an oven and link hands. But as the movie progressed, it became clear that the children never undergo character development. Their personalities are indistinct and static, and while their weapons and offensive tactics evolve throughout the movie, their lack of adequate defense remained consistent throughout their entire witch-hunting career. Sure, they have perfect aim, are fearless and know how to punch, but during every single fight they get beat up and never seem to learn how to dodge a kick in the face. It seems like every five minutes, Gretel (Gemma Arterton) has some sort of blood or gore on her face, and Hansel (Jeremy Renner) revels in exploding the heads of his enemies.
*Spoilers Ahead*
The lack of character development is only compounded by a lack of climax. When all of the surviving characters are gathered on top of the mountain and the mass slaughtering of witches begins, one would think the movie would be resolved quickly and end with an enormous bang. Unfortunately, the fight scene continues for a good twenty minutes, with Hansel and Gretel slaughtering minor witches with startling ease. When the leading witch (Famke Janssen) finally dies, the audience is left feeling slightly abandoned. Instead of an epic, all out death scene, the director threw in a weak attempt to tie the the movie together when the forces of good and evil try to kill each other in the run-down gingerbread house that appeared at the start of the movie. Instead of coming full circle, the melted, rotting candy house was a little boring and definitely not a good choice for a climactic ending.
The few scattered profanities helped alleviate the tension, but they weren’t as funny as intended. Gretel drops the first F-bomb in a threat to the local sheriff. By cursing, she presents a shocking revelation of how she and her brother grew up from poor, abused children into callous adults, destroying the image of innocence built up by the original fairy tale and the opening scene. Besides making an enemy of the sheriff, her language isn’t as clever as writer-director Tommy Wirkola had hoped it to be. The movie would have been funnier if the profanities were used more consistently or came at more key parts in the plot.
The weapons in “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” are also inappropriate–they eliminate any ounce of sense from the movie. The film is set in the mid 1800s, but the semi-automatic crossbows, pistols and machine guns belong more in a 20th century war movie. The out-of-place technology sticks out among so many medieval devices, but the movie is too shallow and fast paced for the technology to have any point other than increasing bloodshed.
The movie’s grotesque villains and abundance of blood is part of cinema’s recent trend toward de-sparkling fantasy creatures like vampires, werewolves and witches. Like the ax-wielding, vampire-slaying Abraham Lincoln, Hansel and Gretel had a violent streak, and their fictitious enemies had rotting faces and a thirst for blood. Although the witches were repulsing, they were one of the few things that actually worked well in the movie. Unfortunately, the audience can’t associate violence with the witches without associating violence with nearly every other character, regardless of whether they are supernatural. This reduces the villainous appeal of the “bad guys,” since they harm less people than the heroes do.
The beautiful scenery is countered by gore, the language and weaponry weren’t thought out, and the characters lack depth and dynamics. Hansel and Gretel, iconic childhood heroes, morphed into remorseless witch slaughterers. If you like extreme bloodshed and never-ending battle scenes, this is the movie for you. If you like interesting, well-thought out stories with well-timed profanities and fights, stay away from “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.”
