Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

All Critics (119) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (17) | Rotten (102)

If this long-delayed and blatantly pandering CGI malarkey is anything to go by, Hollywood's current craze for fairy tales isn't going to have a happy ending.

February 5, 2013 Full Review

Tom Charity

CNN.com

Top Critic

There isn't much to this beyond the poorly staged, rapidly edited violence; the witches, all but devoid of backstory, are basically canvasses for cartoon splatter.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Ben Sachs

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

The movie settles for showers of gore with intermittent moments of spoofiness.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Liam Lacey

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

The whole kidding trope, which you can bet was ordered by McKay and Ferrell, is pretty lame, and defeats the leads' attempts to bring shadings to cardboard cartoon characters.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

At least it puts forth a sound message: Kids, avoid overdoing it on sweets -- especially candy that doubles as drywall.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Claudia Puig

USA Today

Top Critic

It's a grim fairy tale, all right.

February 4, 2013 Full Review

Keith Uhlich

Time Out New York

Top Critic

Imagine the elaborate plan: 'We use the sets left over from Red Riding Hood, add a candy house, throw in some aerial forest shots out of Twilight, keep it cheap. Steampunk it up, and have 'em wear leather, 'specially her. Lotsa cleavage.'

May 6, 2013 Full Review

Brian Gibson

Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

Nothing more than Dario Argento dialed down for fourteen-year-olds.

May 3, 2013 Full Review

Kelly Vance

East Bay Express

It's an amusingly cheeky notion: the siblings from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale as witch-slaying bounty hunters. A defter hand than Wirkola's might have succeeded ... but the film's anachronisms are clumsy and most of the jokes fall flat.

March 14, 2013 Full Review

Jason Best

Movie Talk

Dangerously ignorant and inaccurate on the subject of diabetes, Hansel and Gretel should be disregarded at all costs, and the filmmakers really ashamed they put something so irresponsible on the big screen.

March 13, 2013 Full Review

Sam Bathe

Fan The Fire

...feels like a coven of people in offices visited the set, were shown the mocked-up candy house and then decided to gut the whole thing and make it safe for theatrical and television sales to other countries where there's lots of censorship.

March 9, 2013 Full Review

Dave White

Movies.com

Let's not mince words: Hansel and Gretel is not a good movie.

March 7, 2013 Full Review

Chris Buckle

The Skinny

The gore is a bore and the sweary script just isn't funny.

March 3, 2013 Full Review

Alistair Harkness

Scotsman

One suspects that, seriously or tongue in cheek, it's really about the "war against terror" and that Hansel and Gretel are the CIA and the witches belong to al-Qaida.

March 3, 2013 Full Review

Philip French

Observer [UK]

What will Terra Firma's new overlords think of us if, by some freak set of circumstances, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is all that remains of our once proud hominid civilisation?

March 3, 2013 Full Review

Ed Whitfield

The Ooh Tray

There's no reason in the world for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters not to be good, clean, trashy fun. But it isn't.

March 1, 2013 Full Review

Tara Brady

Irish Times

Made in Germany, this raucous adventure merrily refuses to follow the usual Hollywood route of blanding-down a fairy tale for the lowest common denominator (see both Snow White movies last year).

March 1, 2013 Full Review

Rich Cline

Contactmusic.com

[A] fast and furious all-action continuation of the classic fairy tale ...

March 1, 2013 Full Review

Alan Jones

Radio Times

It's an appalling, insulting and cynical mess from start to finish.

March 1, 2013 Full Review

Derek Malcolm

This is London

The picture moves fast and is an efficient enough action-horror, with good effects and plenty of violence, but it's too machine-tooled and perfunctory to make you care.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Henry Fitzherbert

Daily Express

It ends up looking like a witless, cheesy knock-off of the Underworld and Resident Evil movies. They weren't good, and this is worse.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Christopher Tookey

Daily Mail [UK]

Somewhere in here is a good movie. I guess it got lost in the woods.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Alex Zane

Sun Online

Bereft of engaging characters or dialogue, it lurches from one blood-splattered action sequence to the next, even threatening viewers with a sequel at the end.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Ben Rawson-Jones

Digital Spy

It's a film which is so demeaningly bad, so utterly without merit, that there is a kind of purity in its awfulness.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian [UK]

It takes a fairy tale and plays it for laughs, without being remotely funny.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

David Gritten

Daily Telegraph

Dismal action/adventure fantasy that consists of nothing more than a series of badly directed fight sequences and fails to engage on every conceivable level, thanks to poor direction, lacklustre performances and a badly written, frequently idiotic script.

February 28, 2013 Full Review

Matthew Turner

ViewLondon

• 1. Muriel: You've finally found your way home!
  – Submitted by Cody F (3 months ago)
• 1. Berringer: I'm not going to have you telling me what to do!
  2. Gretel: [headbutts Sheriff Berringer hard]
  – Submitted by Cody F (3 months ago)
• 1. Gretel: Who am I kidding? We do this shit for free!
  – Submitted by Cody F (3 months ago)
• 1. Hansel: One thing this job has taught me over the years: DON'T EAT THE FUCKING CANDY!
  – Submitted by Cody F (3 months ago)
• 1. Hansel: We kill witches! What do you do?
  – Submitted by Cody F (3 months ago)
• 1. Hansel: Most people will say witches aren't real, it's stuff of fairy tales. Then, one day, they show up at your door and eat your kids. That's where we come in!
  – Submitted by Cody F (3 months ago)