KyleJacobs
Since: Mar, 2011
01/24/2015 00:00:00
This review was adapted from one I published elsewhere at the time of the film's release.
TheRealYuma
Since: Feb, 2014
07/27/2015 00:00:00
It actually doesn't try at all to be edgy and gritty. As has been pointed out on the film's page, this movie doesn't take itself too seriously. If anything, it's a parody of the gritty reboot. I mean, Gary Sanchez Productions is involved.
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Abysmal
I now know what it's like to feel my brain cells die one by one.
Imagine, if you will, a story composed entirely of individual, disconnected “cool” moments haphazardly duct taped to an utterly clichéd script written in crayon by a hyperactive twelve year old boy who has just discovered swearing, sex, and gore. Now imagine that this boy's dog found and ate this script, then shat out a movie on the lawn. The resulting film would be considered absolutely brilliant when compared with Hansel And Gretel.
This film is a messy, haphazard patchwork of moments that look impressive on their own but make absolutely no sense when placed in the context of a narrative, especially one as flimsy as this. Even within the actual action sequences, the film gives the impression that it’s simply picking stunts and setpieces off of a buffet table and slapping them together with little regard for continuity or pacing. This film does not offer action sequences; rather, it gives us a group of consecutive trailer shots.
The downtime is no better, offering cliché after cliché without a shred of characterization in sight for anyone. Everyone in this movie comes off as borderline sociopathic. The film essentially reveals the entire plot less than a third of the way through, then spends half an hour trying to pretend that there’s still some doubt left as to exactly how things will turn out. The film’s “humorous” elements largely consist of period-inappropriate swearing, as though the mere fact that a character in what’s theoretically 18th century Europe is speaking like a modern-day high school student will be funny enough to power a movie by itself. I cannot stress enough how badly this fails.
The actors are somehow able to wade through the stupidity with completely straight faces the whole time, and while that’s no easy feat, it actually becomes yet another problem with the film – the script seems to have been written with far more tongue-in-cheek performances in mind, and lighter performances likely would have made the movie at least a bit more tolerable. Famke Jannsen seems to be the only one in on the joke.
Hansel and Gretel is a train wreck. The plot is an unoriginal jumbled mess, humor falls flat, its action scenes are pointlessly chaotic and dull, and it tries far too hard to be edgy and gritty. Avoid at all costs.