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.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Title: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Year: 2012
Director: John Madden
Starring: Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel
Red Rating: RR (2/5)
High Point: The Start
Low Point: Most of the film

This story follows a group of retired English people who decide to take their time off in India and explore the world, some already having previous ties to India such as one of the men having grown up around the corner from the Marigold Hotel which they all conveniently decided to stay in as it described itself as a retirement hotel for the elderly. The film follows the retirees as they explore and grow to love the Indian culture and get to know the owner of the hotel, played by Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire. The film focuses on each character's story, including the owner's own problems with his family which the retirees decide to help him with. They have their up and their downs but eventually grow to love each other and you get the rest, the cliche group of people who become good friends and then everything's good. The end.

Let's start with the positives. It has an end, eventually, after 124 minutes. Of course there were a few good points because it got 2 Rs. When the film starts it does have some funny moments thanks to Maggie Smith, Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. The racist banter won't be for everybody but if you can take it you're in for a giggle, however this dies down as she becomes used to the Indian culture. Younger generations will also get a kick out of the familiarity of the older folk not knowing much about technology as the characters are first shown as technophobes who are unaware of the differences of wifi and wireless. 

As a viewer, you do find yourself learning small bits about the Indian culture; how their family life works, how their children play and the vibrant colours and music which crowds the streets. You really do get a real feel of what life would be like living in the heart of India, a very beautiful country. 

The British references in the film really get the viewers on side. PG Tips, Radio 4 and Hob Nobs make this film a truly British experience and I think we've all had the trials of attempting to take food on holiday just in case we don't like the food over there right? It can't only be me! Even going for two weeks away can be a challenge for us Brits, we love our familiarities and we find it hard to go without the things we love and class as our own.

Now for the negatives. It's a very slow start. The characters are introduced one by one and we get a small indication of what sort of people they are but it takes a while for the viewer to understand what they have in common and why they all feature in the same film. However, when the real story kicked in, things started to happen far too quickly and before you know it, they're all in India and you start to wonder why. 

This film is definitely suited for an older generation. Most people my own age (17) haven't heard of it, I've only heard about it because I found it within my Nan's DVD collection. As a younger viewer under the age of 50, I found the film very boring, it took too long to explain the smallest of things and yeah, boring and slow really. I also got confused by the amount of stories within the main one. Each character kept getting themselves into more and more situations leading to at one point the five or six main characters having around three stories each and everything get tangled up in a giant Marigold web. If it was so confusing for me, I wonder how confusing it would have been for their over 50 target audience. I actually sympathise with them on this one.

For me the little comments at the start of the film, mainly coming from Maggie Smith, I found funny. But then it all went downhill, the lighthearted comedy became too deep especially when SPOILER ALERT one of the main characters dies from a heart problem, a bit sudden and far too saddening for a comedy. It also got slightly confusing as Maggie Smith's character started as the general racist old woman from England, so why would she decide to go to India on her own, especially undergoing the hip surgery she was supposed to get from a doctor of who she demanded to be British? It was a huge contradiction and really made no sense. Personally after 45 minutes, I was getting extremely bored. 

I found some parts of the film incredibly uncomfortable and quite inappropriate, I know it was meant to show people another light of the older generation, but showing an old man reading the Karma Sutra and attempting positions on his own was scarring for me to watch. The highly sexed character also talks about going to an Indian brothel and smoking 'apple tobacco' which I found very inappropriate and it made me squirm slightly, I really don't want to know about old people having sex, even thinking about sex, pretty disturbing stuff. 

So in Britain, the film was rated as a 12A which is the same as a PG-13, you can watch under the age of 12 or 13 with an adult's consent or with an adult present, now I believe this isn't right. No films under a 15 age rating are allowed to use the 'F' word, apparently this film is an exception, and the sexual references, other bad language and racial slurs, this film should not be watched by anyone under the age of 15. However, I don't believe this is a worry as I'm probably the youngest person to have ever have watched this film. 

The characters were very cliche and I became very irritated by them after the first hour. They played on stereotypical behaviours far too much; you had the highly sexed character, the moaning old lady, the worrier, the calm one and the one who is always reminiscing about growing up in India. Do something new for once!

Overall, a complete waste of 2 hours I could have spent watching something more worthwhile. Or doing college work, that would have probably been more fun. Yes, if you're over 50 go for it, you might even enjoy it but for anyone who isn't yet thinking of retirement, stay well clear. The huge names in the film have really let themselves go, this will probably one they want to keep off their acting CV when auditioning for their next performance.