Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters Review!
Acting
Jeremy Renner was great as Hansel. Gemma Arterton was pretty good as Gretel but tended to fall flat, especially in the second half of the film. Whenever she had to be a badass, she was a total badass. The witches were well cast but their dialogue was just plain awful, more on that later. The rest of the cast was mediocre at best, to be honest. The townspeople, the mayor, the sheriff and his goons, were all forgettable and barely worth noticing. Granted, this probably has a lot more to do with the writing than the actors themselves, but it is difficult to tell in this case.
Music
The music primarily consists of brooding and dark victorian gothic inspired tones but not much actually has much punch to it. The scoring was too simple and didn't take a single risk; it just wasn't interesting to listen to. The track "Business is Good" is probably the best and combines some great electric violin and guitar to the previously mentioned style. It reminds me of a some sort of iteration of the theme to the recent Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock films. Unfortunately, the rest of it is pretty much forgettable and only serves to add a vague sense of ambiance.
Cinematography (Visuals)
The opening credits were holy-damn-hold-my-popcorn good. The opening credits combine CGI and paper cut outs enacting a visual history of Hansel and Gretel's lives after they killed their first witch. This chronicles their journeys and exploits and helps to build the aura behind the characters. Additionally, if you happen to see the film in 3D, the paper cut outs have an added sense of depth and movement that is fantastic. I'd say this whole sequence is almost worth the price of admission. However, this is pretty much it in terms of cinematography: for the rest of the film the camera work is fairly bland, which was very disappointing.
As a separate note, I need to talk about the visuals of the witches. Just wow. The make-up, costuming, and character design for the witches was incredible to behold but was entirely overlooked. All of the witches, not just the three main villains, were dynamic and different and had a very vicious Evil Dead sort of feel to them. They were appropriately terrifying and awesome. The idea behind the design is that the witches' deteriorate and become corrupt as they abuse their control over nature. And they actually control nature in really, really, cool ways: creating cages out of branches, manipulating animals, and even taking control of human limbs. Each witch has a wand, an organic mess of a wooden totem with gems and moss and organic material, as well a 'broom', which is really just a giant organically shaped branch of wood. The 'brooms' are not straight sticks, they are massive boughs of warped and unwieldily wood that just happen to allow flight. They are thematically linked to nature. The heroes are rigid and orderly but the witches are flowing and organic, even if evil. Most pop culture ideas of witches are tossed out the window in favor of older nature-based pagan ideas of witches. Probably the best part about the witches is that they are actually powerful. Early in the film, Hansel and Gretel fight one witch, not even a powerful one, and it is one hell of a fight - the witch is strong, fast, intelligent, and moves and fights in interesting ways. It is a pleasure to watch. Towards the end of the film, Hansel and Gretel must get magic to alter their weapons to effectively fight off multiple witches at the same time. Also at the end, a gathering of witches showcases some of the coolest creature designs and costume work I've seen in recent years. Some of them are almost Pan's Labyrinth level of creature design, and that is one of the highest compliments I can give.
Plot and Writing
Why did the plot have to suck so bad? This movie had so much going for it! Great design and visuals, an amazing concept but the plot falls flat on its face. The plot is simple and safe and short to fit an 90 minute format. The character design was actually pretty damn good, and the concepts behind the writing of the main characters was actually pretty solid. I loved the little twist that Hansel was a diabetic because the first witch force-fed him so much candy as a child. I'm sorry, but that is brilliant. Gretel was pretty suitably badass too. But, dear god the plot was awful. It was predictable, it was incredibly contrived, and had far too many convenient plot devices. It also moved too fast, there just seemed like there should have been more developed plot points. The thing is, I feel like the original screenplay must have been better than the presented one - the rest of the ideas behind it all were so good, I struggle to believe that the same person couldn't write something better and more coherent. The witches dialogue was terrible, even though I loved the witches design, their lines were atrocious and cringeworthy most of the time.
Overall
Fun to watch but very disappointing. The character and witch designs show some great talent that was betrayed, for some reason, by terrible writing. So many good underlying ideas entirely let down. I honestly think that this was once a much better and longer film that took a lot more risks than the studio higher ups were comfortable with. Especially if you pay attention to the epilogue, which seems to be from some sort of original and much more advanced storyline. Check out the opening credits sequence when someone puts it online, for sure. I'm not sure I can really recommend this film because of the writing. Honestly, can someone just rewrite this and try again?
Favorite Moment?
The opening to the final confrontation. Knowing that the witches are a powerful force, especially in large groups, Hansel approaches them gun in hand. They scoff at him and assume this is a mere act of hubris - they will not be harmed but such a weapon during the night and on the night of the fabled 'blood moon'. There is a moment of quiet tension as Hansel takes aim, the witch grins, and he shoots. At this point we do not know what will happen - there are actually a number of factors to make us outcome uncertain - but it turns out that the magically blessed bullets are strong enough to harm the witches. Not only that, but Hansel just shoots her in the face, the round explodes and there is only a squirting bloody stump of a neck left. A very satisfying kill to kick off a climactic and bloody gorefest.
6/10
- Jay
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