Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Among casual conversations with friends and acquaintances, the consensus regarding Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters was that the movie looked cheesy and maybe not so great. So why were all those people so keen on still seeing it? The campy one-liners and excessive fantasy gore that was advertised somehow drew the public in. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play the fabled brother and sister, years after their traumatic encounter with the witch in the house made of candy. Now they travel the world hunting witches with era inappropriate weapons and matching badass struts. When they’re hired by a small town with many children taken at the hands of witches, they come across an especially evil witch (Famke Janssen) with ties to their mysterious childhood.

The film follows a recent trend in that it sat on the shelf for a long time after its completion. Since that time, Jeremy Renner has starred in The Bourne Legacy and The Avengers. So the added star power definitely doesn’t hurt Hansel & Gretel. The film’s plot is fairly simple allowing for action to take center stage. There is a sense that the fantasy violence is meant to separate it from similar fare like The Brothers Grimm and Van Helsing, but that isn’t the case. Instead it excels as a counterpart to those.

Renner plays a brusque tough guy, who is somewhat predictable, but does encounter some development in the film’s later scenes. Arterton’s performance is a bit more layered and likeable. Her character is written to be a better rounded and understanding individual and the actress portrays that well. She is able to go between a tough persona and genuine enough fear seamlessly. But the script does her an injustice by turning the strong female character into a damsel in distress for a time. Thomas Mann is also worth mentioning for playing his third loveable loser in about a year’s time. He’s pretty good at it. Weird plot points like a kind hearted troll and Hansel’s battle with witch candy induced diabetes are a bit too strange to let slide, but the film exceeds expectations with a simple structure and likeable characters.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.

Movie 43

Let’s consider for a moment the debate about movie star power. Without an extensive amount of research, there is a sense that the presence of a big name in a movie is not always a guarantee of financial gain. Audiences are typically able to decipher whether or not a movie has something they’re looking for other than a Hollywood A-Lister staring back at them. Never has this been more apparent than with Movie 43, a segmented raunch-fest that exploits big names on the cast list to try and draw an audience to a movie they’d never want to see otherwise. The film consists of 12 short stories told as if they were pitch ideas being told by a psycho screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) to a studio executive (Greg Kinear). The stories all have different actors, writers and directors, who all individually and as a whole are severely overqualified for such a project.

The comedy is so dirty and often disgusting that even a 12 year old boy sneaking into the R rated movie wouldn’t find it funny. But somehow, even though they must have known how terrible this was going to be, the prime actors do their parts to try and save it. The cast ranges from award winning names like Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry and Richard Gere to fan favorites like Emma Stone, Josh Duhamel and Gerard Butler. Even the less respected players like Johnny Knoxville and Sean William Scott are still significantly above this. We must assume that the names of directors like Elizabeth Banks, James Gunn and Brett Ratner must have attracted some of them. To be honest, as stupid as the segments are, the actors are generally pretty good.

The idea of breaking up a film like this is an interesting concept, but it is executed poorly. In many occasions the scenes play out in a way that humiliates the overqualified actor who did the studio a favor by making themselves available for it. The laughs are far outweighed by cringe worthy moments and certain stories play out completely without being funny at all. Movie 43 is the lowest of low brow comedy. I could see it working as a web show, but definitely not a major motion picture release.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.

Gangster Squad

Some people have a real problem with gangster movies. They look at some of the “classics” through rose colored glasses and dismiss the new ones. The latest, Gangster Squad attacks the genre with a modern look and an incredibly stacked cast. Josh Brolin stars as a LA cop trying to combat the mob, who have taken control of the city. In an attempt to stop them, a police chief (Nick Nolte) recruits the cop to head a secret squad to hunt down the biggest criminal, Mickey Cohen, played by Sean Penn. The team Brolin’s character recruits are played by a who’s who of sought after Hollywood talent. (Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi and Robert Patrick) Each could star as a lead in most films, but Brolin’s performance shows he is the right choice.

The story is heavy on tommy gun fights and trips to swanky 50s era night clubs, but there is also a fair amount of comedy that gives relief in between stressful showdowns. Gosling’s turn as supporting man behind Brolin is not the actor’s best effort. Even his chemistry with Emma Stone, who plays the villain’s girlfriend and Gosling love interest, isn’t entirely there. After the two had such a strong bond on screen in Crazy, Stupid, Love the expectation was it would play out similarly here, but in the 1949 setting. That is not the case. Brolin’s troubled yet sympathetic cop is a stronger performance. It’s an interesting trait that he is written as still fighting from his World War II days and doesn’t know how to stop, but it’s pointed out too often. The audience got it the first time.

The plot is middle of the road, but not predictable. The gangster era clichés are there, but that’s because they work. The film’s lighting stands out as part of the production worth noting. That’s rare, but with so much of the film taking place at night, it’s needed. Sean Penn has such acclaim as an actor that his attachment to the project built a lot of hype. But the “good guys” prove to have better performances. The film lost most of its hype when Warner Bros. delayed its September release in order to change a scene after the Colorado movie theater shooting. Gangster Squad had originally depicted a scene where mobsters shot sub-machine guns at moviegoers through a theater screen. The replacement was a confrontation outside in Chinatown. The change seemingly doesn’t have much of an impact either positive or negative on the story.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.