Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Title: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Year: 2013
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen
Red Rating: RRRRR (5/5)
High Point: Opening
Low Point: Fist fight with the police

So we all know the story of Hansel and Gretel from when we were kids. A little girl and her brother get taken to the woods and left there when they come across a house made of sweets. Hansel gets fattened up by the witch who lives inside and eventually the children fight off the witch and burn her instead of getting burnt themselves. But what happens to them after that? You'd think they'd be living happily ever after, just like any other fairy story, right? Wrong. There were plenty more witches for Hansel and Gretel to be defeating, otherwise there'd be no film. And it would be pointless for me to be writing this.

The opening was awesome, to say the least. Showing us the classic story we all cherish from our childhood, but the gothic twist was amazing. The Tim Burton- esque candy house which was meant to look appealing actually looked pretty creepy and makes you wonder why they went towards it, why would you go towards a creepy sweet house in the middle of a forest, I don't know, kids back then. All the opening credits were backed by the one and only Hans Zimmer's original score for the film and drawn out newspaper clippings of various witch slayings carried out by the new witch hunting duo. As the credits go on, the clippings show the pair getting older and older which in my opinion is an amazing way to show an aging process in a film quickly. No cheese, no cliches, just perfection and a really effective way to show the brother and sister team growing up together.

The realism of the film was also a highlight for me. The now older Hansel injects himself throughout the film and we are left wondering what the huge steampunk style injection is for. This is until he explains to their new friend Mina that as he was force fed so much candy as a child, he developed diabetes, having to now inject himself with insulin otherwise he'd die. He explained how he was one of the first people to develop the illness and that he didn't really understand it, but by this little realistic twist to the film, it made the story a little more believable if you can look past the fairytale creatures.

The team not only deal with witches in this film, but they also meet a giant troll Edward, who is one of the witch's helpers. A bad guy? No. Edwards helps the team from the inside when the witches come to attack. Not only new fairytale characters but new friends of the witch hunters are introduced throughout the film. The fanboy Ben instantly captures the audience's hearts when he introduces himself asking so many questions about witch hunting to his idols. Mina was saved my the pair when accused of being a witch and it's safe to say she has a thing for Hansel.  Then there's the group of witches, who reminded me a lot of the three witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth. As it is set in the time Shakespeare would have been around it would really surprise me if they weren't based on the infamous characters. One leader, two followers who could potentially be as powerful as the notorious leader. A perfect recipe for a triple threat of supernatural bad guys.

Now I really had to search for my low point this time as the majority of the film was completely flawless. There was one action scene around the middle of the film. It involved the police force of the town and Gretel. This is very picky of me I know but I had to put at least one negative in this. You could tell very clearly that the punches weren't real. Each one thrown was around 15cm in front of Gretel's face and the angle the scene was shot at made this clearer. There, negativity over. No more bad points.

This film has now taken one of the prime spots of my amazing films of the past few years, and possibly the title of one of my favourite films. The time period is represented perfectly, Hans Zimmer worked his musical magic over the whole film making it even more dramatic and epic and the costume really setting the witch hunting duo aside from the ordinary town folk in their black leather corsets and jackets and the steampunk style weapons making them different to any supernatural fighting team I've ever seen in a film. This is one I will be rushing out to buy on DVD.