Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
(2013)
It feels like a dubious decision to reinvent with adolescent
boys in mind; you’re ignoring the core market and are unlikely to find one with
a group who shy away from “kids’ stuff”. That it’s proved to be a hit shows I
don’t know nuffink. Tommy Wirkola is just the latest to spin a
new-but-less-than-dazzling twist on such material. He never has his sights
higher than metal music, busty maidens and four letter words so, on that
limited level, Hansel & Gretel is
a resounding success.
Occasionally he forgets himself, and inserts a genuine element
from family fantasy fare; the evil monster that turns good (Edward) is more the
sort of thing you’d expect from Labyrinth
than a movie desperate to squidge heads into bloody pulp at every opportunity.
And Edward’s relationship with Gretel (Gemma Arterton) is the only one in the
movie that musters any feeling. Certainly, there isn’t much chemistry between
Gretel and her brother (Jeremy Renner). They’re given broad, wisecracking dialogue
(none of it very good), coursing with very contemporary swearing in place of
wit, but neither has the larger-than-life quality to carry it off. Both are
curiously flat. On the one hand Wirkola seems to be pushing for a Sam Raimi
vibe (the witch hags look straight out of something he would make), on the
other he only has the talent of a Robert Rodriguez. Appropriately, as this most
resembles the coarseness and crudity of From
Dusk Til Dawn and shares a similar fourteen-year-old sensibility. It also lacks
the infectious glee of Raimi at his best.
Wirkola furnished the script too (he’s very far from an
auteur, though), so the hackery is entirely his fault. He revels in
anachronistic weapons and clothing as much as he does language. We don’t really
need to hear Hansel and Gretel’s biggest fan shouting “That was awesome!” any more than we want them to stomp about in
designer leathers (well, some might…). The super-gadgetry was crap when it festooned
Van Helsing; what makes Wirkola think
it will be any cooler here?
It’s readily clear from the prologue that the director will
be taking an irreverent approach to the material, as soon as Hansel pushes a
witch in an oven and asks rhetorically, “Is
it hot enough for you now, bitch?” He has the occasional inspired idea;
Hansel is diabetic due to all that sugar as a small lad, and his ghastly
witches are quite effective on the occasions they leap around on all fours. But
his heroes’ mission is no more and no less than the title; they must rid a “shitty little town” of witches with the
occasional intrusion of a par-for-the-course mystery from the past to solve.
Even if the two are ready made to suffer from childhood traumas it’s no less
one-note and predictable as it’s in every bleeding character description these
days.
The director commendably puts an emphasis on practical
effects over CGI wherever possible. You can also see that he has lots of ideas
but not many of them pay off. This
really needs to be more cartoonish and less the sort of thing a couple of guys
would come up with over a few beers. There’s a chicken joke in there (I
maintain that no movie can be all bad if it contains a fowl gag) and a
reference to Goldlilocks and the Three
Bears and it’s vaguely amusing that the crones sound a bit like Predators.
But generally Wirkola just wants to copy from better pictures. It seems awfully
familiar when we break into a title sequence that brings the exploits of H&G
up to date because it is; everyone’s doing it lately. He keeps the picture
lively (although he doesn’t quite seem to know how to frame the action in
2:35:1), but the problem is his tale has no traction. It doesn’t take long for
Peter Stormare to become a deranged nutter,; he’s befuddled by a script that
can do very little with him, so he becomes a would-be rapist. He fared much
better with his OTT turn in Terry Gilliam’s take on fairy tales, the problematic
The Brothers Grimm (which at least
dazzles fitfully).
Matthew Hopkins would probably be proud of a movie that
takes such unbridled glee in slaughtering witches in a variety of high impact
fashions. There’s an unpleasant undercurrent of violence against women
throughout; it’s just meant to be okay because they’re hideously ugly (and
because they aren’t even human, we’re told). By the time Wirkola introduces a
white witch to redress the balance it’s too late. And then he decides to put Gretel
through the ringer in a queasy sequence for what has generally been a
knockabout experience. He has the temperance to cut away when a child is about
to meet a nasty fate but seems to revel in the mistreatment of women. Famke
Janssen seizes her part like her career depends on it, but the material doesn’t
allow her to become so hissable that you’re rooting for her.
Wirkola’s movie was a surprise hit, dumped in dead-end
January but going on to make more than $200m worldwide. Inevitably, a sequel
has been announced. There’s always the danger that the audience feels they were
hoodwinked into seeing something unsuspectingly and vow to give any follow-ups
a wide berth. This is an unlikely franchise starter, not because it’s terrible
but because it’s so derivative.
**