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Another classic Grimm tale gets the modern Hollywood treatment. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is directed by Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) and stars Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye in The Avengers, Aaron Cross in The Bourne Legacy) and Gemma Arterton (Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace, Princess Tamina in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) as the brother-sister duo who become witch-hunting bounty hunters after a traumatic experience in a gingerbread house fifteen years prior. The film also stars Famke Janssen (Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye, Jean Grey in X-Men 1-3) as the evil sorceress Muriel and Peter Stormare (Wolfgang in the Volkswagen GTI commercials, Meltdown in Transformers: Animated) as Sheriff Berringer. Other witches include stuntwomen Monique Ganderton (Alia in Smallville) and Zoë Bell (herself in Death Proof).

So yeah, if you liked Van Helsing, then this is right up your alley. It hits theaters in 3D and IMAX on January 25, 2013.



Official Site Edited by areaseven
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  • 2 weeks later...

So I've figured this whole Hollywood thing out. When I was a kid, sixth-grade era, I thought it was cool to take these different middle-ages/fantasy/whatever stories and inject my "super awesome-hip-modern" attitude into them.

Then I grew up.

I realized they were bad ideas and really stupid stories. Apparently (I'm now 32) there's a whole slew of sixth-grade level intellectual writers in Hollywood (probably now all around 32) who had the same idea but never moved on AND convinced some other jack-ass to give them a ton of money to write crap I rejected for being drivel when I was still in middle-school.

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Hansel and Gretel a violent cackling cacophony of crap
Once you get past the mildly amusing idea of a grown-up Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) seeking violent revenge for childhood trauma in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, the joke gets old very quickly.
By: Peter Howell Movie Critic, Published on Fri Jan 25 2013
The Hollywood studio pitch meeting must have gone something like this.

Suit No. 1: “So we need to cash in on nursery tales. How about, Jack and Jill go up the hill to fetch a pail … of vampire’s blood!”

Suit No. 2: “I like it, but we need more action.”

Suit No. 1: “Okay. Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn, the sheep’s in the meadow … the zombies are in the corn!”

Suit No. 2: “Go back to the idea of a couple.”

Suit No. 1: “I’ve got it! The title says it all: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Suit No. 2: “Now you’re getting somewhere, but where do you go with this?”

Where indeed? And that’s a dilemma that Norwegian writer-director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) apparently couldn’t resolve, or cover up with gallons of fake blood and viscera.

Once you get past the mildly amusing idea of a grown-up Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) seeking violent payback for childhood trauma, the joke gets old very quickly.

You seen one exploded head or bullet-ridden hag, you’ve seen ’em all. The addition of non-glorious IMAX 3D only serves to lighten your wallet, not to delight your eyes.

The film isn’t funny enough for comedy or scary enough for horror, and the anachronisms are ludicrous. The story is set in a medieval European village, but Hansel packs a machine gun and also takes insulin jabs for the sugar addiction forced upon him by an evil witch.

Gretel is more era-appropriate with her crossbow, but the couple also carry a prototype Taser, centuries before the discovery of electricity.

But why worry about stuff like this, when the film can’t stay true even to its own bizarre logic?

It’s established in the prologue, when young Hansel and Gretel become both orphans and crone hunters, that the best way to kill a witch is to “set her ass on fire.”

So why then aren’t the pair carrying flame throwers?

Probably because Wirkola want to maximize the spurt and noise of an exceedingly shallow script whereby bodies fly and explode, making about a much impact as Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff or being hit by an Acme anvil.

The CGI is downright crummy and the make-up is so bad, a troll character looks like someone dressed up to play Shrek in a church basement production.

A bored Famke Janssen plays a kiddie-kidnapping witch whom Hansel and Gretel need to dispatch. You could say she was phoning her part in, if telephones had been invented — although why did Wirkola stop there with the anachronisms?

The reliable Peter Stormare delivers a few evil chills as the town’s medieval mobster, but acting talent is wasted in his film, which is just a cackling cacophony of crap.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2013/01/25/hansel_and_gretel_a_violent_cackling_cacophony_of_crap.html

*Mod edit to fix HTML problems*

Edited by Twoducks
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Just got back from it, totally loved it. The best way I can sum it up that it's everything that Van Helsing should have been. It's the same kind of twisted, nonsensical fairy-tale action flick concept but it doesn't even pretend to take itself seriously, doesn't have an overabundance of terrible CG, and doesn't have a bullshit sappy ending. It also helps that it's full of profanity, gore and a hint of gratuitous nudity. Gemma Arterton is hot as ever but Pihla Viitala deserves a nod as well.

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I actually watched Van Helsing for the first time last night. I don't know if it's the outdated CG, the pretty bland storyline or the actors' attempt at emulating the vintage style of horror acting, but it was overall a very dull film. So yeah, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is so much better.

P.S.: Still love what the producers did with the milk bottles in the beginning of the movie. :lol:

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Just finished watching this movie, and I have to say that it's a complete guilty pleasure film. Complete cheesiness mixed with mindless blood and gore. It's the perfect movie to check your brain at the front door and simply have fun.

Sorry but a movie that requires you to stop thinking for 2 hours to be able to enjoy it? I think I could never do that.

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Question, is anyone ese seeing that incredibly long line of code or something from slaginpits post? How does that happen?

Chris

Edited by Dobber
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Question, is anyone ese seeing that incredibly long line of code or something from slaginpits post? How does that happen?

Chris

Yeah. Makes the page load really small and narrow on my iPad. No idea how or why it happened.

-b.

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