What was wrong? Gods know..... It's not like it didn't have potential. There's quirky bits and quasi anachronisms: repeating crossbows, rifle bored revolvers centuries before the Napoleonic wars, a geeky fan boy making a comic of our heroes on parchment... Played right, in the right hands, this would have been a fun, action packed, adventure/horror romp. Instead it was a plodding...something. Revenge film? Medieval sorta super hero Avengers?
It opens with a variation of the story we're familiar with, the kids being dumped in the woods by the apparently heartless dad.(It will not surprise me if this is a twist all la he did it to protect them or some such, if I'd had the fortitude to watch to the end), After surviving their encounter and dispatching the witch, we fast forward, with the help of nifty woodcut inspired animation, to the present where Hans and Gret are all grown up ass kicking witch killers.
Let's be clear to pagan folk, in exactly the way the move wasn't: the witches aren't actually human. Even though they all appear to be female, and for reasons never quite explained, want to kidnap/kill human children. They aren't aliens. They are evil faerie folk, which would have some legendary basis. It doesn't appear the writers know what they are, or haven't told the audience in the first 15 minutes, not even when G and H are explaining things to the mayor(deputy mayor?) who hired them. This is usually where the info dump comes. So there's just this random threat of nasty looking women(demons?), with magical powers who can't think of anything to do with them except kidnap/kill/eat kids. Uh huh.
And they're all hideous. The one woman G and H rescue from being mistaken for a witch and about to be executed by mob, is, of course, pretty. Hmmm. Not picking that one up....
I wasn't looking for the depth of the Lord of the Rings here. A light engaging action film would have been fine. But even shallow films need to emotionally connect with the audience. Except for the misguided amateurs who got slaughtered, I wasn't connecting with anyone. H? Nothing wrong with him, just a bit wooden. G? Nothing wrong with her; again just a bit wooden, though not as much as H. That could have been fine if that was their public faces and we got a more intimate view of them in private: how their anger at being abandoned affected them, their personal goals, etc. Neither appear to have children, a bit odd given the time period, human nature and the lack of contraceptives.
In fact that's probably the most glaring omission in a film whose plot is about these heroes who save kids from witches: where are the children? Any children? The tearful reunions of the rescued? In the crowd scenes?
I watched the movie 5 minutes longer than I wanted to, trying to figure out why it was so bad. And the answer is it has the emotional range of a turnip. What they are fighting, how they are fighting is presented, maybe over presented. What they are fighting for isn't: safe communities, a country and people they care for, the honor, gratitude, and yes, money, or the masses. A couple of panoramic vistas of where they were: tall alpine mountains of Grimm legend in the background would have done wonders for setting the tone and giving the experience depth even without changing the characters as written.
Alas. Maybe they couldn't afford it. All I wanted was a light film to pass the time while I ate dinner. I wasn't planning to write a review. At least I didn't pay for it.
