Movie Review: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

So a bit of a warning first: I don't get out much. It was our seventh wedding anniversary  We had the baby sitter lined up and everything was a go. My wife wanted to do dinner and a movie since we had a hard remembering the last time we went out and did both. We looked at what's available and we both met up with a list of movies that we wanted to see.

My wife looked at my list (containing such films as the Hobbit and Skyfall) and said : NO. So I looked at hers. She's got the hots for Jason Statham so we considered going to Parker until my wife learned that Jennifer Lopez was in the movie and since she hates Jennifer Lopez so that was out.

Next on the list was Hansel & Gretel. It had almost universally terrible reviews but it was R rated which suggested there might be nudity to go along with the violence and there wasn't anything else we could agree upon. So with that background in mind we went to the theatre with very low expectations.

We saw it in the new UltraAVX theatre which is a fancy trick to get you to part with an extra 2 dollars on top of the already $3 3D fee. The screen is big, the sound loud and you get to pre pick your seats which I guess is a nice perk. Oh, and the seats were leather, recline, and the aisles were wider then a normal theatre (so you can recline without being in the person behind you's lap). Actually maybe it was worth the $2 after all.

The movie itself was dumb but fun. Aside from the obviously prochronistic weapons, the movie was pretty internally consistent. Sure it was also predictible in many spots but at least the movie winks at the cliches and just keeps going. The action is pretty good. The sets were probably the best thing about this movie. This film really nailed the whole Grim fairy tale feeling. They make use of the 3D a few times but it wasn't anything awesome. I'm still not sold on 3D in most movies. The film tries to have a sense of humor and most of its jokes hit home although there wasn't anything that had me ROFL.

There is lots of violence and gore, much of it over the top graphic although it could have been worse. The troll scene is played for laughs and worked quite well. My wife seemed to think it was among the funniest in the movie. There wasn't much in terms of sex. For the guys, you get a very brief boob shot and Gemma Arterton can really rock a pair of leather pants. For the ladies, Jeremy Renner strips down but my wife thought he needed to spend more time in the gym (bare chest).

So overall it was a fun movie with a nice D&D vibe to it.  You will enjoy the movie if you go in with low expectations and can turn your brain off for the 110 minute run time. We don't get out much so just about any night out is automatically really good.