Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is absurd … but entertaining
‘Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters’ may be the stupidest idea ever for a movie … but it actually works!
Pop quiz. Who knows what the number one movie in Russia was for the weekend of January 18? No, not Django Unchained. That was number two. The number one movie in Russia was … Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters! How the heck did that happen? That’s almost as surprising as finding out that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay were producers on the film. I guess it’s also kind of surprising that Jeremy Renner is in the movie. I mean, I remember when Renner was the next big “serious” actor after his overnight success in The Hurt Locker which he followed up with The Town. A look at his resumé, though, shows an interesting pre-Hurt Locker career: guest shots on Angel, Time of Your Life, and CSI:, the starring role in Dahmer, and an uncredited appearance in a Pink music video! Then Marvel came calling, followed by Universal (to replace Matt Damon in the Bourne movies), and now this … a movie that has actually been sitting on the shelf for about a year.
Now before you assume that means the movie is garbage, it must be noted that the film was another of those MGM productions that were trapped in the studio’s bankruptcy limbo with Skyfall, Red Dawn and The Cabin in the Woods. Of course, it could be argued that the fact that the movie opened in Russia (!) before it did in the US, and had a press screening the night before opening day (and in some places hosting midnight showings, it was only four hours before opening), and the fact that the film runs a surprisingly short 88 minutes, that certainly should peg this one as a pure stinker.
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