Review: Wirkola’s ‘Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters’ is a Brainless Blast

Tommy Wirkola had a dream. The writer/director of the Nazi zombie flick, Dead Snow, wanted to retell a classic fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel, with the twist that the pair of siblings grew up to become bounty hunters ridding the world of witches. Like Dead Snow, the director’s tongue-through-cheek aesthetics would create a fine bloody adventure for this new pair of Gothic superheroes, and to his credit, he’s pulled it off. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is slick, bombastic fun that nails you with so much ferocious entertainment, you overlook how brainless it is. Welcome to escapism with your guide Tommy Wirkola. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play the title characters, leather-clad, crossbow-wielding mercs walking the dirty countryside in pursuit of those who would use witchcraft for evil. Wirkola’s screenplay isn’t so much an origin story as it is the latest adventure for Hansel and Gretel, their previous exploits told to us through …