Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Movie Review

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

                                                                   

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is an American-German action horror fantasy film released in 2013. This movie is co-written and directed by Tommy Wirkola and produced by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kevin Messick and Beau Flynn. The movie was filmed in Germany. The title roles of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters are played by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton.  Famke Janssen, Pihla Viitala, Peter Stormare, Derek Mears, Thomas Mann and Rainer Bock has played other important roles. This movie was also released in 3D.

A scene from the movie Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Plot:

The plot starts when two siblings, Hansel and Gretel were kids. One night, suddenly, their father takes them to a jungle and leaves them there. While wandering around, they find a house made of candy. They enter that house and find a witch inside. The witch tries to kill them, but they fight the witch and finally kill her. Later on, the brother and sister duo, Hansel and Gretel becomes professional and renowned witch hunters.

One day, in a small town where small kids were going missing, a lady is caught for the allegation of witchcraft and the sheriff is about to execute her. Just then, Hansel and Gretel appears. They are hired by that town’s mayor to solve the problem of witches. Hansel checks her and confirms that she is not a witch. Then, when Hansel and Gretel starts to look for the witches, the sheriff also sends a group of men to the jungle at night for the same reason. All of the members of that group get killed by the grand witch. Hansel and Gretel catches a witch, and by interrogating her, they learn that the witch leader is preparing for a grand ritual, for which, she needs to sacrifice six boys and six girls each born at separate months. Hansel and Gretel also finds a teenage fan of them in the town, who himself also keeps knowledge about witches.

Suddenly, the grand witch, with her team, attacks the town and takes their targeted kid. Hansel and Gretel tries to fight them. While fighting, Gretel gets hit and becomes unconscious. Later on, she is brought to safety and gets taken care of by their teenage fan. Hansel follows another witch to the jungle, but also gets hit.

The next morning, the lady they saved earlier, finds Hansel and helps him to get healed. In the meantime, Gretel searches the jungle for her brother and gets caught by the sheriff and his team. They beat her, but she gets saved by a somewhat human-like creature named troll. The troll takes Gretel to a safe place and helps her. When Gretel asks him for the reason why he has helped her, he replies that troll saves witches and then he leaves. Then Hansel and Gretel reunite at their old childhood home. To their wonder, they find the place as a witch’s layer. Then the grand witch comes there and tells them about their past. She tells them the identity of their mother, how their parent died and also reveals that Gretel is a white witch herself. Then they start to fight and again, the grand witch defeats Hansel and Gretel and abducts Gretel for her grand ritual.

Again, when Hansel wakes up, he finds that lady whom they saved. Then she says that she is also a white witch. Next, they gather all their weapons and the lady blesses them. Then, Hansel, that lady and Hansel and Gretel’s teenage fanboy from the town head for the place where the grand ritual was taking place.

The last part of the movie is about their attempt to save Gretel and the kidnapped children and about Hansel and Gretel’s challenge to take revenge on the grand witch.

My review about this movie:

First of all, I felt disappointed about this movie.

Actually, seeing the trailer and posters and most importantly, considering the casting, I had a very high expectation about this movie. But this movie has totally failed to keep up with my expectation. Both of Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton has grown a good reputation for themselves already and I don’t understand why they had to act in this movie.

The weakest part of this movie is its plot. The plot is too weak and simple to satisfy the movie lovers. While keeping everything as they are, just a more sophisticated plot could make this movie far, far better. And needless to say, it was pretty predictable. Its not that every movie has to have some twist in the plot, but at least it could be better than two siblings who are witch hunters, learns their past and then go on their mission.

And several unnecessary scenes of violence also add up to the negative side of this movie. The director could do better without them.

But on the good side of the movie, the acting and dialogues are good. Same goes for the make-ups. The witches also looked okay, where the troll looked like the “Ogre” from the animation ‘Shrek”. The location also looked good and the weapons looked old styled but fashionable.

This movie features a small scene of nudity. So considering it and the violence, this is not a movie for kids.

The special effects are also good, although they felt insufficient. A little more use of special effects would look good on this movie.

So, overall, although this movie has a better than average IMDB rating of 6.1 (while I’m writing this review), I didn’t like this movie. You can consider watching it by considering its casting, but I will not recommend Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters to anyone who is looking for good movie to have some time spent pleasantly.

How much did you like this movie? Feel free to comment.

For those who are interested:

IMDB link: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters IMDB

Wikipedia Link: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Wiki