Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

SCI-FI / FANTASY

Spellcast Action

★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5 | Movie - DVD - Rental

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Rated: R Fantasy horror violence and gore, brief sexuality/nudity and language.
Release Date: January 25, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes

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Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writers: Tommy Wirkola, Dante Harper
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Zoe Bell, Peter Stormare, Thomas Mann, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Robin Atkin Downes, Derek Mears

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SYNOPSIS:  In this spin on the fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel are now bounty hunters who track and kill witches all over the world. As the fabled Blood Moon approaches, the siblings encounter a new form of evil that might hold a secret to their past.

REVIEW: Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola moves from Nazi zombies to child-eating witches with a script he crafted with new-comer co-writer Dante Harper. Originally a well-known fairy tale of German origin and published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm, Wirkola looks to up the ante with adult siblings with a mysterious past, a cache of weapons, and a perchance for hunting down and killing patrons of black cauldrons and darker magics.

As children, Hansel (Jeremy Renner, Marvel's The Avengers) and his sister Gretel (Gemma Arterton, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) are led into the woods by their father by behest of their mother. Left alone in the woods, they find a house made out of candy. They enter the house, cold and hungry, suddenly finding themselves the prisoners of even hungrier witch. With a little bit of luck, Hansel and Gretel kill the witch and escape with their lives. As they grow up, the siblings continue to hunt down and dispatch witches wherever they find them. They become renowned as witch hunters. Years later, in the town of Oxford, several children have been abducted by witches, forcing the sheriff Berringer (Peter Stormare, The Last Stand) to perform public hearings and forcing the mayor to contract with Hansel and Gretel to find the children and kill the witches. But the actions of the witch they seek baffled the hunters. As another child get taken, Hansel and Gretel must overcome extreme odds against a cadre of spellcaster and a troll led by Muriel (Famke Janssen,Taken 2) to prevail. The question is... with only a local fan named Ben (Thomas Mann, Fun Size) and a woman named Mina (Pihla Viitala, Must Have Been Love) who was formerly accused of being a witch... will they live to slay another day?

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters follows in a long line of classics including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Red Hood: Werewolf Slayer, and Teddy Roosevelt: Rough Riding Zombie Killer... Wait, some of those do not sound like real films!? The colon titled films continue, most recently with a supernatural bent. While Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter came from modern literature which followed the literary mash-up 'Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies', writer/director Tommy Wirkola takes a page from network television's 'Grimm' by taking a fresh look at the German born and bred Brothers Grimm and their dark literary works. Most of their tales feature savage acts and dire consequences. What happens, though, after the children kill the witch and escape from the dark forest? In today's age, those kids would have spent years in therapy at a huge expense. In the simpler age of man, Hansel and Gretel take out their psychological scars the old fashioned way... they burn it (witches, that is).

This new twist on the dark fairy tale is very tongue and cheek. From the moment you see glass milk bottles with parchment tied to the side with 'Missing Child' information, you know that this production does not take themselves or the story too seriously. And that works to its advantage. The town of Oxford is a generic hamlet that could have seen a multiple of creatures - from dragons to vampires to, yes, witches - fly through it. Everyone has Americanized accents. And the word "awesome" is bantered about from the younger generation residing in the burg. The weapons, apparent early Galileo designs, are so far advanced for the time period that any historians may find their heads literally exploding. But where Hansel and Gretel fall short on period accuracy, they make up for it with action, explosions, and general ass-kickery!

Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton take on the roles of Hansel and Gretel with relish and fun. Renner reprises his Hawkeye role from the Avengers, trading in a high-tech compound bow for iron boom sticks that Tony Stark would have been proud of. Gemma, the lighter weight of the siblings, still carries herself like a girl who had grown up decapitating and burning witches for a living. Both clad in leather, Hansel and Gretel take on all comers of the spell casting variety. They seem outmatched against hags with flying brooms and magic wands, but their passion for killing evil witches and ingenuity seem to balance the scales.

The witches in the tale are hideous and unique, each resembling the lands in which they roam. Murial is joined by Horned Witch (Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Chernobyl Diaries) as her main accomplice, but as the blood moon draws near, others flock to the mountain stronghold with their own creepy looks and powers. And as we all know, witches hate to do any menial task, so they have troll Edward (Derek Mears, Gangster Squad) to carry out their heavy work. Plenty of unique details are added to each witch to give the audience some great eye candy. Sorry, Candy Witch!

A fun popcorn movie with plenty of gory action from beginning to end, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters may surprise moviegoers. As long as you can join in the fun that the story seems to convey, this new twist on a dark fairy tale may actually spellbind you!

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The Last Stand

ACTION / ADVENTURE, SUSPENSE / THRILLER

Last Legs

★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 | Movie - DVD - Rental

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Rated: R Strong bloody violence and language.
Release Date: January 18, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes

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Director: Kim Jee-Woon
Writers: Andrew Knauer, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Goerge Nolfi
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forest Whitaker, Peter Stormare, Eduardo Noriega, Luis Guzman, Jamie Alexander, Johnny Knoxville, Zach Gilford, Harry Dean Stanton, Genesis Rodriguez

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SYNOPSIS: The leader of a drug cartel busts out of a courthouse and speeds to the Mexican border, where the only thing in his path is a sheriff and his inexperienced staff.

REVIEW: I Saw the Devil and The Good, The Bad, the Weird director Kim Jee-woon director takes on American audiences with the action flick return of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ghost Team One writer Andrew Knauer and The Day After Tomorrow screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff work under writing supervisor George Nolfi (The Adjustment Bureau) to take a last stand against the cartel.

Chief sheriff ray Owens (Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Expendables 2) enjoys the quiet of his one-light Main Street border town of Summerton. As the local high school football team takes the students and most of the residents of the town hours away, several hundred miles north in Las Vegas FBI agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker, Repo Men) leads a team of swat, FBI agents and security to transport a federal prisoner by the name of Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega, Vantage Point) to federal death row. Cortez promptly escapes in a well executed breakout plan and races into the desert with a suped up Chevy Corvette Zero 1 with a FBI agent hostage Ellen Richards (Genesis Rodriguez, Man on a Ledge) in tow. As Cortez races to the Mexico border, the otherwise quiet town of Summerton Junction is facing its own problems when the inexperienced deputies under Ray's command discover a brutal murder that leads to a moonlit firefight between deputy Sarah Torrance (Jaimie Alexander, Thor), deputy Jerry Bailey (Zach Gilford, In Our Nature), and Mike Figuerola (Luis Guzman, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island). As the bullets fly and Cortez speeds closer to town, Ray must barricade the main roads and rely on his novice deputies, an antique weapons museum curator Lewis Dinkum (Johnny Knoxville, Fun Size), and the friend of a fallen officer.

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the big screen in a big way, obviously catching the acting bug with his cameo appearances in The Expendables and The Expendables 2. A relative unknown Austrian born actor... just kidding... Schwarzenegger has had a phenomenal career on the silver screen in many genres, including action, comedy, science fiction, and more. When he decided to follow in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan, Schwarzenegger gave up acting for politics. But true to his word, Arnold is back. At sixty-six years of age, Arnold still cuts a muscular silhouette. But his age is starting to peek through the sinews of his biceps.

The Terminator himself makes some smart moves with his return to action. Director Kim Jee-Woon uses his experience in the genre to maximize the gun battles, car chases, and sequences of cat and mouse. Schwarzenegger lets the rest of the cast do more of the heavy lifting, instead of relying on his own brawn to carry the movie. Forest Whitaker, an imposing actor all his own, leads a team of agents in hot pursuit of a dangerous fugitive. Cortez's henchman lieutenant Burell (Peter Stormare, Lockout) is as slick as snake oil as he and the rest of Cortez's small paramilitary force assemble the final piece of Cortez's escape plan. While Cortez and Burell make up the relentless, dangerous criminals with no remorse for the taking of innocent lives, Schwarzenegger's Ray Owens assembles his own army. Unfortunately for Schwarzenegger's Ray, his army consists of a bunch of local misfits, including Johnny Knoxville's Lewis and Luis Guzman's Figgy who provide much of the comic relief to balance the intense action sequences.

Some of the story is filled with Austrian cheese, almost every line uttered from Mr. Universe's lips a possible future classic cliche. Schwarzenegger continues in the tradition he set for himself years ago with Terminator, Conan the Barbarian, and Predator, now a caricature of his former self. At the climax, after Ray and his deputies had stared down a small, heavily-armed army, Ray does have enough in the tank to go mano-y-mano against the third generation cartel-bred Cortez.

The Last Stand will not be the pinnacle of Arnold Schwarzenegger's career, far from it. But what Arnold brings with his latest effort is a fun popcorn bucket thrill ride that should delight action fans during the slower Winter/Spring season film slots. The car chases are slick and adrenalized, the firefights are bloody and filled with lead. There are ooohs, aaahs, and chuckles. The climax could have had a better look to it to match the rest of the film, but Schwarzengger manages to still kick a little ass.

The Last Stand has plenty of action twist and turns, all culminating in a final fist swinging showdown between two physical opponents. If you need a shot of action in your veins, The Last Stand may just do the trick.

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Lockout

Not Necessarily A Life Sentence

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Rated: PG-13  Some sexual references, intense sequences of action, language and intense sequences of violence
Release Date: April 13, 2012
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins

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Director: James Mather, Stephen St. Leger
Writers:  James Mather, Stephen St. Leger, Luc Besson
Cast: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, Peter Stormare, Peter Hudson, Tim Plester

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SYNOPSIS: An ex-CIA operative is wrongfully accused of killing another agent, but is offered his freedom if he can rescue the President's daughter from the midst of a violent takeover by inmates in an orbiting super maximum prison.

REVIEW: Writer and directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, known for various short films including Prey Alone, take an original story idea from action writer/director Luc Besson. Known for films including Leon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, Besson has written screenplays or treatments for others to great effect, most notably Liam Neeson's Taken and Jason Statham's Transporter franchise. Can his original idea, concept, and screenplay build the same adrenaline rush as his earlier work under the direction of Mather and St. Leger?

Ex-CIA operative Snow (Guy Pearce, Seeking Justice) assists in an operation where he was serving as a back-up to an old agent friend. When the mission goes south, Snow is arrested for murder and summarily sentenced to a 'pilot program' super maximum prison set high in earth's orbit. When President Warnock's (Peter Hudson, Hitman) daughter Emilie (Maggie Grace, Taken) and prison staff are taken hostage by an inmate Emilie was interviewing, Snow is offered the opportunity to gain his freedom if he is makes it aboard the prison space station, finds Emilie alive and well, and gets her out of harm's way. Standing in Snow's way are self-righteous CIA supervisor Langral (Peter Stomare, Premonition), a vicious, tattooed, unpredictable inmate named Hydell (Joseph Gilgun, Screwed), and a formidable inmate leader named Alex (Vincent Regan, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance). His only allies are his partner Mace (Tim Plester, Kick-Ass) and a sympathetic CIA agent named Shaw (Lennie James, The Next Three Days).

Lockout covered a lot of ground as the maximum security prison drifts in high orbit above the earth. With closed and confined spaces of the space station itself, the snarky Snow is a pumped-up version of Bruce Willis' John McClane from Die Hard. Add in the lone good guy Snow versus criminals in space and you have a nod of the hat to Sean Connery's 1981 Outland. Look at a member of the First Family in a tight situation in a thug-infested chaotic locale with only one man available with the brawn, brains, and motivation to get the mission done, and you have Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken from Escape from New York. Moving the action to an orbiting space prison allows for plenty of room to move around, with the vacuum of space allowing for limited escape options.

Guy Pearce has always been a favorite of mine, since Chris Nolan's unforgettable Memento and Curtis Hanson's noir L.A. Confidential. In Lockout, Pearce adds mounds of muscles to his normally trim frame in order to carry the weight of this high-drifting action adventure movie on his shoulders. With scathing and juvenile retorts to all comers, Pearce's Snow manages to illicit punches to the face by his allies and enemies while growing smiles and laughs from the audience. Playing worthy adversary Alex, Vincent Regan looks like a bearded looming teddy bear. But put a plan in his head and a gun in his hand changes his quiet intelligence with quiet and efficient brutality. Maggie Smith's Emilie holds her own against both men, standing tall and defiant when she needs to. Rounding out the most notable characters, Joseph Gilgun's mohawked tattooed Hydell is violently smitten with Emilie and the sound of his own guns firing.

M.S. One, the maximum security space prison, is a great set piece. From dealing with prisoners awoken from an enforced stasis sleep fighting in the general population section, to nitrogen rich hiding spaces, to multiple levels of ductwork, rooms and crawl spaces, the station provides miles of variety. The CGI of the exteriors is lush with gray monotones, bombarded with shadows and back lit sunlight. The special effects are not Avatar caliber, but they are dutiful and consistent throughout.

Lockout lets you in with a typical action hero performance by Pearce, the over-the-top combination of criminals Hydell and Alex. Poorly timed HALOs aside, the story rides high even as the entire prison threatens to decay out of orbit. For simple popcorn entertainment, Lockout may be the film you see in the big house called your local theater.

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Undead Noir

Director: Kevin Munrow

Writer: Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Tiziano Sclavi

Stars: Brandon Routh, Anta Briem, Sam Huntington, Peter Stormare, Taye Diggs, Kurt Angle

RANT: Dilemmas abound for me this weekend. Do I back peddle and go see the kid friendly Rio or the flailing Water for Elephants? Instead, I went out of my way to go see the comic book movie Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. To do so, I needed to drive 22 minutes to a multiplex farther out on Long Island. The National Amusement Commack Multiplex is a throwback to a forgotten era when simply adding more theaters was enough. No stadium seating existed, although the seating was kept in good condition. The aisle way rode down the center instead on on the side, making me wonder again why the best seats in the house would be given up for patron access. This theater's setup is a reminder of moviegoers expectation of the creature comforts of stadium seating and cup holders.

SYNOPSIS: In Louisiana, the mecca for the undead creature of the night, Dylan Dog was appointed the sole human investigator for vampire, zombie and werewolf affairs. After the death of his girlfriend and his massacre of the vampire elders, Dylan retires - branded a monster hunter. Now, with the death of a client's father and the death of his partner, Dylan decides to take on one more case.

Kevin Munroe, really only known for directing four kung fu reptiles in the 2007 CG adaptation of TMNT, comes at us with the adaptation of Tiziano Sclavi's DC comic book series, Dylan Dog. Tiziano Sclavi also wrote the novel Cemetery Man which became an Italian underground cult classic movie entitled Dellamorte Dellamore.

Set in modern-day New Orleans, Louisiana, Dylan Dog feels like a crime noir film with the addition of the undead. In this case, the title of "Undead" covers all manner of ghouls, zombies, vampires, and even werewolves - an obvious slight to the furry community if I ever heard it.

In the case of Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Kevin Munroe's noir interpretation of the source material, Dylan Dog is similar to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Dylan Dog is a hard-boiled private investigator, cynical and brooding. With over-used voiceover narrative by Routh's Dylan, we are spoon fed the majority of the plot when needed. And when we need more explanation, Dylan provides us with more narrative onscreen. But with Brandon Routh, Dylan Dog is also more comedic and light, in spite of the heart-breaking losses from his past. Routh is too good looking to be miserable for very long.

With too much forced narrative, Routh's Dylan doesn't have much chemistry with the client, Elizabeth (Anita Briem), who loses her father to a werewolf, even though it is her case that brings him out of retirement. Actually, though, it is the death of his PI assistant, Marcus (Sam Huntington), who coaxes him out of self-pity. And herein lies the redemption of the film.

Whether it is the previous relationship and screen work that Routh and Huntington shared in Superman Returns or something else, the chemistry works between them. And Huntington makes what is a mediocre comic version of Constantine into something enjoyable. Once he is killed and returns as a zombie, Huntington takes a Chas Kramer rip-off to an entirely new comedic level, filled with exclamation and a journey through the hidden world of zombie diet, beauty regiments, and storage room zombie support groups.

And speaking of Constantine, Peter Stormare stars as the head of one of the wolf clans - growling and fun to watch, although somewhat pale compared to his portrayal of Satan in Constantine. Taye Diggs stars as Vargus, the head of the opposing vampire nation and peddler of a new drug consisting of vampire blood. All the while, Routh's Dylan, Huntington's Marcus and Anita Briem's Elizabeth look to solve the mystery of a stolen artifact that may contain the power to undo the undead nations.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is fairly forgettable aside from Sam Huntington. A seven foot tattooed zombie looks like it came from Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The demon that emerges in the third act as a result of the artifact reminds me of Tom Cruise's Legend, but darker in color. The noir works to a degree, but I think that a 1940s era would have worked better.

WORTH: Netflix