Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (DVD)

First thing to note is this: I am not rating the movie based on its overall quality as a movie. I am rating this movie based on how much I enjoyed it, especially considering how hammy and ridiculous it was. Most movies like this I don't enjoy at all, but I loved and had fun with this one.SPOILERS FOLLOWFirst of all, the story hooked me from the beginning. Maybe I'm on a weird "Hit Girl" fixation from the Kick Ass movies, but when young Gretel stabbed that witch repeatedly, that's when I knew this movie would be a blast. The story kept me entertained and interested throughout the entire film. Then, we have the adult Hansel and Gretel, played by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton. You can easily see how ridiculous Renner finds the whole thing, but his performance is still fun and enjoyable to watch. In my opinion, it's Arterton (both her character and performance) that steals the show. My favorite scene with her is when she bites the evil town sheriff's nose (after breaking it by headbutting him earlier in the film), and then she spits a chunk of it out, her face covered in blood. Let's not mention all the random F-bombs that Hansel and Gretel (mainly Gretel) throw around. I'm not a fan of much profanity in films usually, but I have to admit that the F-bombs are part of the treat here (since I don't really consider this a "film" but a "movie").As for the witches, they had to be some of the silliest, least scary, most over-the-top witches in cinematic history...and I loved them for it. There were many moments where I was outright guffawing at the goofiness. On a quick note, I applaud the use of actual prosthetics instead of CGI for the witches; they actually all looked pretty awesome. As far as the silliness, we have these witches, all with superhuman strength in addition to their magic, running around jumping over things, punching, kicking, riding brooms backwards, using magic to make humans kill people, etc. All the while, they look and act like the Orcs from Lord of the Rings; in other words, there's lot of screaming, growling, and head wagging.My favorite performance of all is from the beautiful Famke Janssen as the grand witch Muriel. While I love her for her role as Jean in X-Men, it was seeing her as Xenia Onatopp, the sexually-crazed villain from Goldeneye, that made me love her as an actress. I think she excels at playing villains, and here is no exception. In a way, this role is quite similar to her Goldeneye role. It's extremely over-the-top, she kills a lot of people brutally, and she just completely embraces the ridiculousness of it all and makes it great and memorable. Plus, I admire someone as beautiful as her being willing to appear under ugly witch makeup for most of the movie, although part of me found the witch rather sexy knowing it was Famke.NOTES ABOUT EXTENDED CUTI haven't watched it in full, but I've seen different scenes, and from what I can tell, the extended version is the way to go if you want more over-the-topness. One of the standout new moments is when Muriel (as a watch), bashes a guys skull and pulls out his brain, then throwing it on the ground with an Orc-like head wag. There are many other scenes and changes that make the extended version actually worth it.Keep in mind, I'm not an advocate of brutal violent in real life. But the silly, campy violence of this movie is just so fun to watch. On a guilty pleasure scale, this movie gets 5 out of 5 stars from me.

I loved Dead Snow, so buying this movie was an easy choice for me. (I was also happy to learn that they are working on a sequel to Hansel & Gretel. I look forward to that with great anticipation.)I bought this version of the film because I'm a sucker for a label that dares to suggest `intense new footage NOT seen in theaters.' I'm not a timid soul, if you've got an uncensored version of anything I want to see it.Love steampunk, loved the fanciful weaponry used throughout. Loved that a lot of the action takes place in the wilderness (their interior fight sequences were less successful due to poor lighting). Loved that the movie was both grim and humorous (it needed to work a lot harder to be dead on funny though). As for the acting, of the lot Famke Janssen served the movie best as Muriel a witch with a diabolical plan. Gemma Arterton was also fantastic as Gretel. Less successful was Jeremy Renner as Hansel, he seemed terribly uncomfortable trying to exist in this wacky world of witches. Concerning the claim of inconsistent action, yes, a lot of the fighting sequences were straight out of the Looney Tunes handbook of silly, but so what. Realism was not their aim! And yes, the story is a bit simplistic; but this is not the type of movie that requires complications to hold our interest. There is no earth shattering reveal, no twist, nothing surprising or unexpected, it's pretty straight forward. The plot concerns the siblings Hansel & Gretel who have issues that will never be resolved as long as there are witches to hunt down and exterminate. They are bounty hunters. They get paid to do one thing. That's what this movie is all about. I don't know how that confused some critics, but it obviously did.For me, the only questionable scene (that was added afterwards) involves an attempted gang rape. How that got tossed into the mix is anyone's guess, especially as it serves no purpose other than to confuse the intent of the the filmmakers. It literally came out of left field.Other than that, I have no additional complaints. It's a keeper!