Highly enjoyable if slightly flawed take on the story

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2015)

Having turned themselves into formidable bounty-hunters, the brother-and-sister duo find themselves summoned to a village beset by child kidnappings and witch activity and uncover the mystical connection between them and the strange activity in town.
This one was quite the exciting and enjoyable variant on the story with a lot to like. What turns it on the most is the fact that there's a rather large sampling here of action that proves their worthiness and capabilities at their goal, which sets them up as skilled professionals accomplished at their job rather than being told they're great because that's the way the story is supposed to unfold. Being given access to their kind of weaponry and defensive tactics, from spreading razor-wire between trees most identifiable as escape routes, whips, knives and spells as well as their physical brawling, there's a lot to like here about this which is set through the film's rather fun pace here. This one tends to go through a rather large amount of time here battling the witches and the different helpers along the way, making for the fun of their first forest encounter after being hired where they beat off the lone witch, the spectacular assault on the town where the witches bombard the village and homes with explosive fireballs, the chaos and panic hides the brawling quite well and there's the rescue attempts that come up rather fun as well providing this with a great scene that's really filled with action. There's also the massive forest encounter here, from the lead-up to the mountain-top hideout where they hold the big gathering for the other witches there, the huge gunfight that wipes out most of them and then the big hand-to-hand battles that lead into the forest escape into the final brawl back in the cottage which makes for quite an action-packed time here. All of these are rather enjoyable with lots of spectacle, great make-up for the different witches and their powers that come off rather nicely and plenty of bloody kills here to make for an even better time here with these all combining together to give this one a lot to like. There's not a whole lot here that doesn't really work, as all that does come up seems to be the fact that this one never really pays off much in terms of connecting them to the fairytale beyond the opening sequence in the candy-house which is played off nicely, but seems to be more of an after-thought here in terms of how they're supposed to be the same people. This causes the middle of the film to turn into a rather irritating series of scenes where they're completely at odds with everyone around them constantly worrying about each other if they're out of the others' line-of-sight, keeping these scenes rather clichÃ©d and familiar due to the constant repetition of these scenes. Still, this one was overall quite fun.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity and children- in-jeopardy.