Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters - Written Review

I am slowly coming to a conclusion about certain stories here.  You can argue that almost every story that could be told has been told in movie or TV form.  So what Hollywood has been doing is taking old stories and giving them a new twist.  Usually a more action packed twist.  They should just stop doing this.  And never do it again.  Because they can't seem to get it right.  I think I'm a fair guy when it comes to giving a new idea a chance.  I go into every movie with an open mind and the hope that what I'm seeing is gonna be good.  Unfortunately it falls about 40/60 good to bad.  Usually the idea, whatever it is doesn't work onscreen.  And so was the case with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Much better than Snow White.

H&G is actually a movie sequel to the classic fairytale story.  Years after they killed the witch when they were children, Hansel and Gretel have grown up to become professional witch hunters in an action/fantasy feature.  Really, it's not a bad concept.  Much better than that stupid Snow White and the Huntsman.  They didn't change the classic story, they just added onto it and made it into an action movie where H&G hunt witches.  And it could've been good, if they hadn't made some stupid mistakes.  First, their speech.  Now I'm not expecting ye olde speak, even though the time frame is 1400-1500.  But the usage of the f word, the way it was used, usage of slang terms, speech patterns, the vocab they were using, even the cadence and the way they spoke was so present day.  I didn't feel that these were fairy tale characters.  Instead I felt like these were two people I'd bump into on the subway.  It felt so weird and out of place.  And every character was like that.  They didn't feel like they were from or were in a Grimm's fairytale.

We haz guns.  Lots of guns.  Most of which aren't realistic.

So the characters felt out of place for this movie.  Second, the plot holes.  I know it's a fool's errand to be bringing up plot holes in an action/fantasy movie.  But even so, there was 1 big thing that didn't make sense.  Despite being professional witch hunters for the last 20-30 years, there were A LOT of things that they didn't know about witches or hunting witches.  Stupid obvious stuff that you'd think they would've just picked up and learned during the course of 2+ decades killing witches.  We, the audience, were learning things about witch hunting as the "professionals" were learning them.  Also, they were just sloppy for witch hunters.  Again, you'd think it would be hard for a witch to get the drop on them after they've been hunting them for more than a quarter century.  But that's as far as I go with the plot holes.  Everything else I rolled with.  The weapons, the physics, everything else was fine with me, primarily because of the type of movie I was watching - action/fantasy.

There is never anything good inside an anus, no matter what color it is.

In conclusion, there's a reason why this movie came out in January.  January-March is the time of year they put out movies that they're not expecting to do that well.  And H&G isn't so great.  While it's not a terrible movie, it leaves you feeling disappointed because you felt that this movie could've been good.  It could've been.  But they dropped the ball on this one.  They were trying to make the main characters way too cool.  Instead they came off as being jerkish and full of themselves often times.  You didn't really like them because of that.  Which is a huge screw up.  You never want the audience to dislike your main heroes, especially when they're the good guys.  Did I dislike it?  A little.  Did I feel like I wasted my time?  No, I was still entertained.  I just wish they'd done a number of things differently.  I am more disappointed because of wasted potential than anything else.  I was expecting something like Van Hellsing mixed with the TV show Supernatural, which if they had done that this movie would've been so much better.

Film Crazy Adam neither approves nor disapproves of this movie.  He also neither recommends nor discourages the watching of this movie.  Film Crazy Adam isn't angry.  Film Crazy Adam is disappointed.