Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
describes itself as a “dark twist on the fairy tale which...”
And I can just stop right there. There
is really no reason to keep going. We have all seen the “dark twist
on a fairy tale” a million times, we've seen monsters hunters done
to absolute death these days, and I guarantee at least half the
people who saw this trailer thought “Constantine meets Brothers
Grimm.”
I liked Constantine. I...didn't hate
Brothers Grimm. I guess. It was just kind of bland and ill-paced, but
it had some strengths. This? I don't even know what to make of this.
First of all, where on earth does this
take place? Hansel and Gretel clearly sound American, the old guys
she headbutts for some reason starts off sounding German, but by the
end of his sentence sounds Scottish, the teenager sounds like he's
from Iowa, but the whole thing looks like an old time German village.
I also have no idea when this is
supposed to take place. There are straw-thatched roofs but also
machine guns? Firearms are present, but they still use crossbows?
And then we have the witches. Oh God,
these witches. I said in the video that I missed the time when we
didn't just lump all mythological creatures into one, gray skinned,
super strong entity that had to be killed via decapitation. Witches
aren't really strong like the one they're fighting early on. They
can't splinter trees or tackle Hawkeye thirty feet back. Also, if
witches are so terrifyingly deadly, how do Hansel and Gretel kill one
as children, ostensibly just by whacking it with a stick?
But none of that matters, because
apparently “we aren't hunting witches.”Okay? Why not? Why set up
this elaborate scenario where the primary job skill of your
protagonists is killing witches, show us that witches are apparently
a big problem, and then throw in this twist that “ermegerd, it's
not witches anymore!” It never WAS witches to us. The idea of there
just being witches is new to the audience. If it was a sequel to a
Hansel and Gretel movie, where they fought witches in the first
movie, then it would have some merit, but here, it's just unneeded
drama on top of an already confusing premise.
All in all, this trailer is just a
mess. The vast majority of it is just posing, and one liners, and
explosions. Yes, I know that's the general action movie
advertisement, but when they just say “you've gotta be kidding me”
with no context, I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel about it.
I don't think there are going to be any
surprises with this one. I'm calling another forgettable shoot 'em up
here.
