Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Title: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Screenwriters: Tommy Wirkola, Dante Harper,

Producers: Will Ferrell, Beau Flynn, Chris Henchy, Adam McKay, Kevin Messick

Stars: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton.

Popcorn Movie Rating: 5.5

24 Hours Movie: You’ll see it, won’t get bored, and forget about it the next day

By: David Maldonado

The best thing this movie has is that only runs for 88 minutes so there is no chance to get bored.

But this is also its weakness, because if its duration is 88 minutes and those minutes are full of action, there is no way you can go deep on the characters. They are completely flat. Hansel only sees thing black and white, but when life starts showing him the grey areas of things, he don’t have any trouble accepting them. Gretel is the one with almost emotions, because she thinks of her mother and father, but there is no big deal about it. And when she learn some truth about their past, she just go with it, no trouble with that either.

The problem with character without emotions is that they cannot connect with the audience. And if the audience doesn’t connect with your protagonist, they won’t care whether they live or die on action. I have no sympathy with any of them so I didn’t care if anyone dies.

The story isn’t so powerful either. They have a life; they kill witches for a living. Why are these witches so important? They are not. This is just another job, one job that will make them learn some truth about themselves, but as I said, they didn’t care about that either, so no big deal, just, let’s kill some witches.

What is really good is the action. All sequences are great and entertaining, which I think is the most important thing. Production values are awesome, the special effects, the settings, make up, everything is cool. And the best thing is the R rating. Is blood everywhere, which makes sense because if you’re telling a story about two hunters whom kill their prey by cutting the head and turning them in fire, the less you can do is show some blood and head exploding. That is great, a lot of heads exploding, blood everywhere. It’s an action movie and a bloody way to kill the victims so it makes sense that the movie becomes that gory.

But what I couldn’t stand was the guns. This a medieval or something like it movie. Why the hell there are guns, shotguns and even a machine gun maxim. People lives in huts, ride on horse and use arrows, but when thing get messy they use a shotgun and some 50 caliber bullets. It doesn’t make sense and I hate when filmmakers can’t adapt themselves to the period they are setting them own story.

I would suggest you to wait for the DVD and see it in your sofa with some popcorn. But there are always people who likes going to the movies and see this kind of movie. But I can guarantee that there is nothing special about this one and when you see it you will only remember it for 24 hours.