Directed by:
Tommy WirkolaScreenplay:
Tommy WirkolaCinematography:
Michael BonvillainComposer:
Atli ÖrvarssonCast:
Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Pihla Viitala, Derek Mears, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Joanna Kulig, Thomas Mann, Peter Stormare, Bjørn Sundquist (more)VOD (1)
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The film is set 15 years after the young Hansel and Gretel (Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton) were abandoned by their parents in the forest and taken prisoner in a gingerbread house by a child-eating witch. The siblings managed to escape, and in the intervening years have taken advantage of their subsequent immunity to bad spells and curses to set themselves up as expert bounty hunters, becoming world-famous for their skill in tracking down and killing evildoers around the globe. The film follows the brother and sister on their latest assignment - a campaign against evil sorceress Muriel (Famke Janssen) - which they begin to realise may be their golden opportunity for revenge of a more personal nature. (Paramount Pictures AU)
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Reviews (10)
Brutal, crazy, effective and fun small-scale movie. On the other hand, it’s such a simple movie that it doesn’t really have a deeper message. The story has zero telling value and it’s all created for one single reason – to entertain the viewer – successfully so. Which is no surprise considering it has Jeremy Renner in the lead role of Hansel who has to inject himself with insulin because the Witch used to stuff him full of candy when he was a kid and now he’s lucky to still be alive. On the other side, there’s Gemma Arterton who got incredibly hot since Prince of Persia, which is thanks to latex, but also thanks to her cool lines and the overall toughness and edginess of both Hansel and Gretel. In any case, this was the perfect entertainment for 87 minutes.
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Reminded me more of The Exorcist than Hansel and Gretel... I recommend showing it to your kids at bedtime if you have a morbid desire to change their diapers even at puberty. Otherwise, it’s an ordinary action movie that tried to have funny lines but didn't really succeed. It's a weird mishmash of all sorts of things, but it's watchable.
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It's likeable bollocks that moves at a giant pace, doesn't take itself seriously and indulges the male audience with an attraction named Gemma Arterton, but on the other hand it doesn't have a shred of atmosphere and fails to evoke the slightest concern for the characters. The formal execution itself is interesting (especially in relation to the nature of the story of Hansel and Gretel), but it's not so good when it comes to the details and action scenes. One time and that’s enough.
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More like two and a half stars. On the one hand, there will be swearing at Van Helsing and The Brothers Grimm, and on the other hand, people will marvel at this gem that is considerably less imaginative and funny. And never-mind the actors. Could it be that the cheap, bloody special effects that many people gush about helped add to the great fun I'm reading about here? Or perhaps the forced coolness of the main characters, especially the once again unprecedentedly wooden Jeremy Renner? Or the parade of awkward vulgarities? It's possible... Anyway, I did smile occasionally and the action scenes had quite good swing, but the best character of the whole film was simply Edward the troll, who topped even the lovely Gemma Arterton in second place. Peter Stormare played almost the same man in the aforementioned The Brothers Grimm, and he did it better.
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Not convincing Gemma Arterton to show her tits is utterly petty of Wirkola and foreshadows other ills. Thought the direction, like Dead Snow, is total anarchy (meant as a positive) that doesn't particularly worry about time, space, sequence, or characters, Hansel and Gretel often fails in its guilty pleasure potential. That is to say, the main sibling duo don't sleep together, though it seems headed that way several times, no children die, and the violence doesn't cross a certain threshold. On the other hand, the unbelievably long and retarded monologues of the main witch, who still has all of her members even two minutes after she opens her mouth, which is grossly inconsistent with the characters' approach to anything else, are outrageous. The action scenes are somewhat reminiscent of a video game in their conception (the witch running away from Renner and throwing various adversities in his path that he must overcome; the girl at the stationary machine gun trying to mow down all the witches in front of her, who come flying in from different directions) which I have no problem with, but overall I'm sorry that a scene like the one with the Gingerbread Man in The Brothers Grimm was more WTF than this entire movie.
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