Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters
Revisionist remakes / reboots / updates / retellings of classic stories seemed to have experienced a slight resurgence in the last 10 years with one of the better received having been Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, based mostly on the idea that the film was played off in such an ominous, serious tone since the filmmakers knew that the PREMISE alone (as shown in the title) would result in enough entertainment value for everyone to enjoy. While taking the material seriously in such high concept, borderline ridiculous stories would seem to be the way to go, other attempts to revise old material in a new way would stumble and fall oftentimes upon execution. Thus was the case with this 2013 release, a new and expanded take of the classic Grimm Brothers fairy tale which could have done wonders as a cinematic experience were it not for the fact that it was āreimaginedā as just a really goofy action comedy, complete with the main characters talking in modern dialect that has plenty of F bombs even though this takes place in 1800s Germany. In fact, the word āfuckā is used so many times by these classic fairy tale action heroes that it would make John McClane blush. The story begins by recapping the famous fairy tale as originally told by The Grimms with the titular brother and sister duo as little kids happening upon a gingerbread house where inside lives a nasty witch. After locking them in cages and forcing Hansel to eat enormous amounts of candy to fatten him up (which as an adult has apparently caused him to be hobbled by diabetes in a lame nod to modern healthcare culture), the brother and sister outsmart the foul creature and lock her inside her own oven for a burning, screaming death (the little girl even fires off a one liner in the process). Years later, Hansel and Gretel have acquired a reputation like few others for tracking and killing witches all over the countryside when they are brought in and hired by a small village that has seen a steady rise in disappearing children and the reactionary sheriff (Peter Stormare) is preparing to torch an innocent young woman whom he has personally apprehended (most likely because she refused his sexual advances which was a legitimate reason for women to be persecuted for witchcraft by town elders in those days). Here come the adult versions of Hansel And Gretel onto the scene complete with foul mouthed wisecracks and an impromptu beatdown for Stormare as they examine the persecuted young lady and declare her not to be a witch all while vowing to track down the real culprit and bring her / it to justice. As Hansel, we get Jeremy Renner (a legitimate American heir to the Hollywood testosterone throne perennially always held by New Zealander Russell Crowe) who is a good choice for the role if we can get around the fact that his Hansel talks like a modern movie cop with his profanity and also that Renner seems to spend at least half of his screentime here engaging in fight scenes with almost exclusively female actresses (not a good look even if they are witches). For Gretel they cast the lesser known Gemma Arterton who is still charismatic in her own right even if the character retains the same rather flip attitude as her older male sibling. It appears that there is an extremely powerful (grand) witch in their midst (Famke Janssen, who didnāt bat an eye when she told reporters that she took the role solely to pay her mortgage), one who not only has no qualms about kidnapping children, but also in killing them and drinking their blood (which leads to a surprising modern reference showing her and other witches sitting around drinking Adrenochrome) and is planning something big within her ranks that will give her and others like her seemingly unlimited power. It is here that the story starts to zig zag quite a bit in setting up what appears to be a number of major twists but only following through on a couple of them mostly concerning the origins of Hansel and Gretel themselves and the rather surprising fact that they werenāt quite as educated on witches as they thought they were mostly because in this version of explaining what witches are it would seem that they are stuck in a permanent state of haggard ugliness which not only makes them easy to spot (complete with broomsticks) but they are also pretty feral, beastly fighters in hand to hand combat (giving Renner all he can handle whereas his sister prefers to shoot at them from a distance). Even more interesting is the fact that the film appears to be setting up a twist connecting Jannsen with the classic gingerbread witch from the beginning of the story (sisters?) only to have it fall through completely with no explanation whatsoever leaving the big revelations to come in the form of who the siblingsā mother really was. Janssenās superwitch at least spends a little bit of her screentime using her regular pretty face even if she prefers the nasty, knarled look as well (apparently only a witch of her stature can switch back and forth at will while the others are permanently trapped within deformed ugliness) so fans of hers wonāt have to worry about her being buried underneath a massive makeup job constantly. Meanwhile Stormare continues to lurk about the edges of the story as the film introduces a rather unnecessary subplot about him wanting to rape Gretel because she obviously makes him feel inferior about himself as a man and Stormare (who appears at first to possibly be a mole for the real witches but in actuality turns out to just be a genuine asshole) gets to meet his demise here with his pants around his ankles as a result. Of course, we know Renner has made a mistake here accepting this part when at one point during one of his non stop one on one fight scenes against a woman, he actually pulls out a pair of reinforced brass knuckles so that he can beat her face into an extra pulpy mess, but itās okay since heās fighting a witch. Unfortunately, the film becomes completely stupid and ridiculous when it comes time to prepare for the final battle when the siblings whip out a large arsenal of automatic(!) weapons even though this is the early 1800s and also recruit a devoted superfan of theirs who has all their newspaper clippings and his own rudimentary knowledge of witchcraft and how to stop it to tag along with them as sort of a backup. The final witch conference called by Janssen looks more like a freakshow display than anything else complete with Siamese twins as since it is explained that any woman who engages in witchcraft finds themselves physically rotting to the point of literally being deformed as the expected outcome for any practitioner, then exactly WHY would any woman engage in it to begin with and WHY would Janssen (who is powerful enough to appear anyway she likes) prefer to look that way most of the time by choice?? Surely modern witchcraft techniques have taught us that most witches prefer to stay young and beautiful looking in order to get the things that they desire, but here the motive appears to be solely magical powers with looks be damned, not to mention that they are essentially ghoulish monsters now (no different than werewolves or demons) which makes them savage opponents to deal with in a combat situation for which our hero Renner is more than up to the task. The whole thing was sold to the producers on the idea that this would be a guaranteed franchise (although no actual sequel has materialized yet) but sadly this first entry does indeed run out of steam well before the finish with plot twists that donāt amount to much and character actions (such as when Janssenās slave troll suddenly jumps ship to the good side with no real decent explanation as to why he does so) that donāt really make much sense but at least the film keeps the gore coming and Janssen is shown to have the genuinely scary ability to find herself at gunpoint before casting a spell to make the armed person either use the gun on themselves or somebody else instead. Had the whole operation taken itself even remotely seriously, it could have been a truly frightening horror film with action elements as opposed to being a silly comedic romp where certain horrifying moments (like the aforementioned Adrenochrome bit) are glossed over in such a way as to have a lack of emotional impact so that we can move on to the next one liner by our brother and sister team because maybe the premise alone as stated in the title wasnāt enough to reassure the filmmakers that they could get this to work without making it so damn goofyā¦
5/10