2013 - HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, consider the title

As children Hansel and Gretel survive the evil witch in the gingerbread house.  They grow up to be a pair of witch hunters who kill witches for a bounty.  They end up in a small village which is being attacked by a really tough evil witch and her coven.  The really tough evil witch wants Gretel's heart so she can perform a ritual that will make all witches immune to fire.  Let the violence and the bloodbath commence.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is a very silly movie to put it mildly.  The intention appears to be to go down the same road as the John Landis horror comedy An American Werewolf in London.  That film mixed humor and what was at the time trendsetting gross out effects.  Well they got the gross out part right they just couldn't seem to get any clever humor out of their silly story. 

The film was shot in Europe mostly with European actors.  However the leads were American actor Jeremy Renner as Hansel, taking a break from playing Hawkeye from those Marvel superhero movies. However you wouldn't really know it since he basically plays Hansel and Hawkeye as the same character.  British actor Jemma Arterton is Gretel who in this case is taking a break from playing a credible performer in her career. The writer of this epic didn't even attempt to explain their mishmash of American and British accents. 

 

The film was produced by one time comedy partners Will Farrell and Adam McKay and I get that everyone involved in this production had their tongues really in their cheeks.  But for a film like this to succeed you really need to be a lot wittier spoofing this fantasy stuff and while the gross out bloody humor is in abundance, the actual amount of cleverness is sorely lacking.

 

Of course after criticizing the stupidity of this film I do have to report that it made a bumch of money for the studio.  There was a lot of discussion about filming a Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 2 but as of this date it never came to pass.  Kind of surprising since Hollywood never passes on an opportunity to beat a film concept to death if there are bucks involved.  Even though this film made a lot of money it's still a piece of crap.

The film was written by the director Tommy Wirkola, the running time is 88 minutes.