"Whatever you do, don't eat the fuckin' candy" - Hansel
My school was kind enough to sponsor my whole course to an iMax screening of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which was incredibly lovely of them. I guess there are (teeny tiny) perks to being in DVFX.
It seems like there's a lot of fairy tales getting revamped into "for big boys and girls" films, and it's not a trend I'm particularly fond of, but will probably end up following anyway. Now I'm a fan of gore in films, as long as they're not the supernatural type of horror in genre, and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters disappoints in that aspect. The gore just wasn't realistic enough, and it was horribly distracting, and not in a good way. The blood splatters and body pieces getting flown off were tracked right, but they just weren't composited very well, and it was just a big no-no for me.
To be honest, I was quite surprised when I found out that big-time actors like Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye, Marvel's The Avengers), Gemma Arterton (Alice Creed, The Disappearance of Alice Creed), and Famke Janssen (Jean Grey, X-Men) were in this film, just because it seemed like such a ridiculous parody of a movie. I then found out that Will Ferrell was the producer of this movie, so the overall feel of the film plus the actors and everything in it started to make sense.
The crew's attempt in making the story get as far away from a PG-rating as they can only backfired. The gore seems incredibly forced, the scene where Ben tries to touch Gretel's boob was lame, the relationship between Hansel and Mina seemed to sprout out of nowhere, not to mention the nude scene, which just seemed unnecessary. They just seemed desperate to get an R-rating slapped on it, and it just wasn't carried out well.
Despite all the negativity, I did have a good time watching the film! It was an easy watch, with fairly adorable characters, such as Ben and Edward the Troll. Gemma Artenton's badass-ery was flawless, and Jeremy Renner is still cute. The horrible gore, albeit horrible, is still somewhat gore, and I enjoyed watching heads getting chopped off and bodies getting sliced to pieces. The difference between the way Hansel & Gretel talked and how the rest of the village talked was slightly off-putting as well, but the somewhat funny lines seemed to make up for it. Also, steampunk weaponry. Can't go wrong with that.
So overall, I like it. There are so many things that could make this film so much better, but it is what it is, and it's somewhat acceptable. If you don't think so, just think of it as a parody film, and it just might get funnier. If I could change only one thing about this film though, I'd change the movie poster. That pathetic excuse of a movie title font is just horrible and painful to look at.
"I hate to break this to you, but this isn't gonna be an open casket" - Gretel
Replay? Yes.
When? When I'm high on booze, or brownies
With who? Friends who do not go pale at the sight of blood
Image credits to Rotten Tomatoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment