Despite monumentally bad marketing, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters  turned out to be quite a lot of fun with silly tongue-in-cheek action and laughs that are surprisingly satisfying.

All grown up and selling their witch killing skills to the highest bidder, Hansel (Jeremy Renner)  and Gretel (Gemma Arterton)  are hired to look into a rash of child disappearances. In fairly short order the two discover that this is not a run of the mill witch infestation but rather the work of a powerful Grand Witch named Muriel (Famke Janssen) who is collecting children to complete a ritual on the night of the blood moon that will reverse the corruption brought about by using black magic and allowing evil witches to blend in with regular people.  Their work is stymied by the bloodthirsty Sheriff Berringer (Peter Stormare) who finds Hansel and Gretel’s immunity to witch spells suspect. Undeterred, the pair fight both parties in an orgy of gory action using steam punk style weapons and a bunch of one-liners and f-bombs.

So it should be pretty obvious from the above synopsis that this movie is very silly and is not to be taken seriously. What allows it to work is that the movie knows this and has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. I went in thinking that this was trying to be a serious Gothic action movie that was patently ridiculous and asinine. The cold open for the movie sort of reinforced this idea with melodrama that will make your head spin and offering up a witch that looks like she was taken right off the Army of Darkness set. It felt a lot like Van Helsing,  Snow White and the Huntsman or Red Riding Hood and I was though I was really in for it. After the  credit sequence, however, the movie establishes the child disappearances by showing missing children ads on parchment tied to milk bottles and I realized where this movie was coming from.

Not everyone cares what a movie is intending to do but for me, intentions mean a lot. If Hansel & Gretel was completely earnest and took itself seriously it would be a disaster. There is no way suspension of disbelief could cover how ridiculous things get here. On the other hand, when the movie doesn’t take itself seriously and is playing the whole thing for fun and laughs there is almost nothing too ridiculous to bring to the table. Everything is over the top here from the stylized and no-way-in-hell should they have that weapons to the bevy of anachronisms and modern references and if you can buy into what the movie is selling then it all works incredibly well.

The action in the movie is just as over the top as the over all tone. It is stylized and again kind of ridiculous but the effects are very good and there is a creativity at work, particularly in terms of the witch’s spells, that make it a lot of fun to watch. In fairness some of the fights with the witches plays out similarly to wizard battles in Harry Potter but then again those are pretty badass so if you are going to emulate something it might as well be something cool. The weapons Hansel & Gretel use are generally interesting if completely preposterous and they are used in a very fun way, particularly in the third act when the big confrontations start to happen.

The movie is rated R and as such features a lot of profanity, nudity, violence and gore. It is kind of nice, honestly, in a time where everything is toned down to chase the PG-13 cash to see a movie that goes all the way with the material. Like the action and humor, the gore is absolutely over the top and is, in and of itself, pretty hilarious. Things are so extreme here it is almost difficult to find any of it offensive because it is just so much. If gore and violence are your thing, you could do a lot worse than Hansel & Gretel.

The performances good here as everyone buys into the tone and no one is off in their own movie doing their own thing. I have not been super impressed with Gemma Arterton in the past but she is a real standout here and I dug her character quite a bit. Jeremy Renner’s Hansel is a bit cranky and maybe not super bright but Renner plays him perfectly without any winks that he is above this stuff. Famke Janssen plays the villain with just enough arrogance and nastiness to be a worthy heavy without any mustache twirling nonsense. That honor goes a bit to Stormare who seems to be having fun being a huge dick as the sheriff.

Hansel & Gretel has a bit of an uphill battle thanks to the reaction that many people had to the marketing and that is a shame. There is a lot of good stuff here for the right taste and director Tommy Wirkola has exactly the right touch for the material. His previous film, Dead Snow, a movie about frozen Nazi zombies in Norway, straddled the line between horror and comedy with a silly premise that delivered quality and Hansel & Gretel does the same thing with less subtlety. It isn’t winning any Oscars but it was not meant to. This is here for goofy escapist fun and for audiences with the right sensibilities it delivers on that in spades.

Conclusion [8.0 out of 10]

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is silly movie that knows it is silly and has fun with its premise in a way that cynicism and irony don’t often allow for. If you are not into movies that embrace their own ridiculousness and go over the top as much as possible then you are probably not going to dig this much. If, on the other hand, you like your violence and gore with a healthy helping of silly comedy then you have come to the right place. If you aren’t sure where you fall on this continuum then a matinee show or eventual Redbox rental is probably the appropriate speed.