Review: Hansel And Gretel Witch Hunters

JOE got a sneak peak at the new movie Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D starring the lovely Gemma Arterton and Jeremy Renner

By Adrian Collins

Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters tells the story of the two fairy tale characters 15 years after they've had their run in with the witch in the gingerbread house that we're all familiar with.

The movie opens with a re-telling of that famous story, including the giant house made of sweets, which is a pretty great way to start things off.

There's a really ugly witch to boot, but this part was kind of short for our liking, we wouldn't have minded a bit more on that given how important that moment is to the whole storyline.

That's us nitpicking though, this movie really is all about the idea of Hansel and Gretel becoming serious ass-kickers and getting to beat the crap out of some witches, in 3D. And it delivers on that front, if you like to see exploding witches getting splattered all over the place that is, which we do.

Hans Zimmer of Inception fame does the music here, although we didn't notice it standing out as much as it did in his other work with the Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight movies.

As for the stars, we don't need to say too much about the absolutely lovely Gemma Arterton as Gretel, who spends the entirety of this film in leather pants, a master stroke from the costume designer we think. We got the chance to sit down and have a chat with Gemma about the movie too, and she's only lovely.

It's also got the lovely Famke Janssen in it too as a powerful witch, while Jeremy Renner, who seems like a top bloke, plays Hansel as a remorseless killing machine, with a massive gun for blowing stuff up.

The 3D is a nice addition, and really comes to life in the big battle sequences, but again possibly not as much as we'd like, as it seems a bit of an afterthought.

Overall the movie is fun and wasn't made to be winning any Oscars, so if you're looking for a decent popcorn movie, this fits the bill nicely.