“Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” in 3D: Diabetes, Witches, Kung-Fu Witches, and Sex With Witches

#YOLO.Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
Paramount Pictures
88 minutes

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters—a new action film presented in IMAX 3D that is very loosely based on the famous German fairy tale—delivers surprisingly profound commentary on the epidemic of diabetes.

Hansel, played by Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner, is now a full-grown adult who tortures and mass-murders sadistic Wiccans for money and justice in the 19th century. At one point early in the movie, he sits down to chat with an attractive young village woman. Suddenly, he rips a stout syringe out of his pocket and plunges it into his skin. The witch-killing protagonist informs the villager that when he was a child a witch force-fed him vast quantities of evil candy. Because of this, he has to take these injections every day, or he will die on the spot.

The word “diabetes” isn’t ever mentioned. But it’s still a helpful reminder from Hansel and Gretel about the dangers of consuming too much sugar.

Anyway, the rest of the film (directed by Nazi zombies auteur Tommy Wirkola and co-produced by Will Ferrell) involves a lot of witches doing kung fu and eating small children from the village. If you enjoy watching witches doing kung fu in 3D, then this movie is for you. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see Hansel have sex with a blonde witch in a tranquil meadow, then this movie is for you. If you’ve ever longed to see a grown-up Gretel (played by Gemma Arterton, a.k.a. the Bolivia-dwelling MI6 agent “Strawberry Fields” in the James Bond series) karate chop witches, wield a crossbow, and threaten to blow a corrupt sheriff’s brains out “all over these hillbillies,” then this movie is for you. If you have ever desired to watch Famke Janssen portray Bloodlusting Witch Hitler, then this movie is for you. And if you have ever yearned to watch a mass of ugly witches get mowed down with a Gatling gun and a shovel, then, by god, this movie is for you.

Here’s the trailer, in the language the story was meant to be told:

ALSO: This is a good time to remind you that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is also a thing. It too was in 3D.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters gets a wide release on Friday, January 25. The film is rated R for being so powerfully awesome that the human mind almost reels. Click here for local showtimes and tickets.

Click here for more movie and TV coverage from Mother Jones.

To read more of Asawin’s reviews, click here.

To listen to the weekly movie and pop-culture podcast that Asawin co-hosts with ThinkProgress critic Alyssa Rosenberg, click here.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate