More fun than I thought it would be

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2013)

Two kids are abandoned by their parents. When they venture into the woods, they end up in a house made of candy. It's the house of a witch and the kids manage to throw her in the oven and burn her.
Fast forward some years and a town is plagued by the disappearance of kids. It's thought that witches are responsible. Just as the eager town's Sheriff is about to lynch an accused witch, Hansel & Gretel show up and release the girl after confirming she's not a witch. They've been hired by the mayor to find the witch who's abducting all the kids.
And they do find a bunch of witches who aren't related to the abductions. Meanwhile the Sheriff and his gang run into the main evil witch. It takes a while but H&G eventually discover that the witch has to abduct 12 kids for some ritual. She's got only one kid to go. When they confront her, they realize that they are no match for her, she's too powerful. But they eventually figure out how to stop her on the night of the ritual. We also learn more about their past and their parents.
At first I wasn't particularly thrilled with Hansel & Gretel. Too much takes place at night, I'm getting tired of tiny, dirty medieval cardboard towns, and their townspeople. But it eventually won me over. It's got a great cast in Renner, Stormare, the beautiful Arterton, and Janssen. The effect are great, the action is fun; and there's plenty of gore. Particularly cool was a giant gnome who works for the evil witch. The plot features nothing new and could have really benefited from some original idea, probably another writer should have been added to help. Wirkola is an excellent director and the whole movie is just so competently done. It could have easily been goofy, silly, if not cheap, but it's the opposite. The only thing missing was a fresher and better story.