‘Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters’ is in theaters now.
I expected so little from this movie. It shouldn’t be good. At most, it should have fallen into the “so bad, it’s good” category, but this movie surprised me.
Everything in “Hansel & Gretel” comes together just enough to be good. It is certainly better than “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” the only recent entry into this genre I can think of.
Hansel and Gretel are two adorable children who are abandoned in the woods by their “loving” parents and soon stumble upon a house made of candy.
Because Hansel and Gretel were raised by parents who never bothered to tell them how iffy a house made out of candy is, they start chowing down. The witch who lives there kidnaps them, but using their wits and scorching flames, they manage to kill their captor and escape. Because they find that killing witches comes as naturally as eating suspicious woodland architecture, they become witch hunters and go on a killing spree.
I cannot emphasize enough how gory this film is. Hansel, Gretel and a handful of supporting characters shoot, bludgeon and burn their way through a plethora of monstrous witches. And it is just plain fun. I had a big, stupid grin on my face throughout the film and the charm of the ridiculous premise never ran out for me. There are a few bad moves, but the good bits balance out the bad for the most part.
The action is competent, the acting is decent, the writing isn’t that bad and the plot never loses fuel. For me, “Witch Hunters” manages to barely scrape by with a gold star.
