It was 2009 when we first heard about Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a film starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, whose plot you can guess from the title. If it was a Michael Bay or Paul WS Anderson production I’d say it sounded like the worst thing ever (and Michael Bay did indeed want to make a gritty Hansel and Gretel movie at one point), but when it’s Will Ferrel and Adam McKay’s production company Gary Sanchez producing a film by Tommy Wirkola (of Død Snø fame), you hope that it’s well-directed satire. Of course, Hollywood has a way of turning a send-up into a straightforward movie about the thing you were trying to send up (The Change-Up, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter). You can decide whether that’s happened with Hansel after the jump. It looks slightly more tongue-in-cheek than Abe Lincoln Vamp Hunter, but not overtly comedic either, and the fact that it’s being dumped into theaters in January seems to indicate that the studio doesn’t think too highly of it. But Karl Hungus gets head butted in it, so there’s that.
