Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was clearly conceived as a way to cash in on the trend of revisionist rewrites of well known fairy tales and stories. In the last couple of years we have been given two retellings of Snow White (Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman), and one of both Red Riding Hood (Red Riding Hood) and Abraham Lincoln [Lincoln (just kidding, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter)]. The aforementioned films have all had varying levels of financial and critical success and with society’s current obsession with the supernatural (vampires, werewolves, and superheroes) it seems like the perfect time to strike while the iron is hot. Not to mention casting Jeremy Renner who has won men over in films such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and women with his good looks while playing Hawkeye in The Avengers was a stroke of brilliance to help make this movie an easy pitch to a movie executive. Throw in some 3D and action sequences and studios had to be salivating at this opportunity. Let Then they made the movie.
The first few minutes of Hansel & Gretel show some true promise. Hansel (Renner) had some corny lines that got legitimate laughs out of the audience and I immediately thought this was a great idea: Play the tongue-in-cheek “we know this movie is cheesy and we will give you everything you’re here for” card. This worked well for films like Snakes on a Plane and Piranha 3D. Unfortunately after those first few lines you realize that this is no joke. There is no winking at the audience and there is no real entertainment either. I don’t fault Hansel or Gretel (Quantum of Solace’s Gemma Arterton) for their inability to save the film because the script they were given was helpless. The plot twists are predictable as soon as they set them up. Example: the magic used by witches have no affect on Hansel or Gretel and they have a mom who they mysteriously knew very little about before her death. As I was typing this I could feel people knowing the connection before the sentence was even finished. The plot is almost non-existent, but what pieces are there are completely formulaic. I don’t even blame the writer/director Tommy Wirkola for the abomination that became Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. I lay my rest solely on the studio who wanted to simply turn a profit. They gave a B-movie writer/director and asked him to make a blockbuster film because he was cheap and had done well on the B-movie circuit. The studio saw a chance to make money and that’s all this film ever was to them. And unfortunately for the paying public, it’s all it ever will be.
D.
No comments:
Post a Comment