Some pretty awesome candy coated carnage

Rating: 8/10 (18 February 2013)

It certainly looks like Hollywood is taking the old fairy tales that we grew up with as kids and turning them into adult action movies. The trend started with Red Riding Hood, which was a werewolf movie, and then we had Snow White and the Huntsman, which was sort of like a fantasy film, and now we have this film, which, I must say, is the best of them so far. Now we have Jack the Giant Slayer to look forward to later on in the year, and I wonder if the trend is going to continue along the same path after that.
Unlike the previous films, which sort of stuck closely to the original story, Hansel & Gretal moves in a different direction, dealing with the two children who were imprisoned in a house made of candy after they escaped and grew up. Basically, they had been orphaned, and after killing one witch, got a taste for witch hunting, so collected an arsenal of exotic weapons (for the period, which I suspect is 18th century Germany) and then travelled around Europe hunting witches.
The concept in an of itself could have simply opened it up to a television series, so when we approach this film we wonder if it is simply an episode in the life of these siblings, and in a way it seems as such. We hear of some of their exploits beforehand (through newspaper articles and some followers), but the movie really focuses on one particular episode in their lives, which in the end turns out to be interconnected with their lives from when they were kids.
The period is set during the time in Europe when women were hunted and burnt at the stake for being witches. Hansel pretty much does not care whether a woman is a witch or not. He seems to have this particular hatred and distrust of humanity, and if it looks bad, then he will kill it. As such, Gretal is the brains of the outfit, having learned to determine a normal person from a witch (being a witch tends to create a rot so that if you do practice witchcraft, and surprisingly only women are witches in this film, it begins to have an affect upon you).
I do like the fact that they chose a rather average looking person to play the role of Gretal. She is not some drop dead gorgeous Hollywood actress that you would expect to see in such films (take for instance Angelina Jolie, not that I find her all that attractive anyway, nor am I particularly drawn to her films). I do prefer the more average, realistic, woman playing such roles in films, but then again I prefer more average looking realistic women, as opposed to the unrealistic goddesses that seem to dominate our screens and have an adverse effect upon our society (such as guys needing to have a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend from them to be a success as a man, and for a woman to be drop dead gorgeous to be a success as a woman).