Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a rating a 14% and I am a strong believer in that site. But this one time I gave a benefit of doubt for this movie, only for Jeremy Renner's sake. He has been on the right track for past few years and my thought was how could he go wrong so terribly. So I gave it a try and I am happy. As for me, the movie is not a classic but not as bad as a 14% rated movie. It is racy witch hunting fantasy story with awesome action. But the complaint I have on Hollywood as a whole is, the movies based on fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Brothers Grimm, Red Riding hood etc tend to restrict themselves for a smaller canvas as opposed to Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or for that matter even the Twilight series. Hansel and Gretel, just like Brothers Grimm had all the potential to be a much much bigger film than a film with one line story and 5 minutes climax.

Coming to the movie, Jeremy Renner is his usual talented actor in this and somehow looked much younger. Gemma Areterton looked her best in this movie. She was so beautiful (read between the lines :P ) that you would not believe that she was the same in "Prince of Persia", "Clash of the titans" or "Quantum of Solace". The setup is so simple and is very similar to many of the stories like these. Children of a village getting kidnapped for a ritual in the climax and how the heroes stop it. It's that simple and that's what I wanted in bigger and better way. But with the tight screenplay with no useless scenes, two "Grand White witches" for eye candy and awesome action with lot of gore the movie becomes thoroughly enjoyable. No, this is not a movie for kids for all the reasons you can think of except for substance abuse. I would like to conclude this review saying Rotten Tomatoes gave 14% rating and yet I give it at least 60% on their scale for keeping it simple and entertaining non stop.