Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

I had completely forgotten that Famke Janssen was in this movie, so it's an unexpected addition to my, apparently, ongoing Famke Film Extravaganza (FFE). She neither plays Hansel nor Gretel in this film, and since there are such few other possibilities, you should have already guessed that she's the main witch. She pulls it off well enough.
This movie is exactly what I expected it to be. That is such a loaded statement I realize and I do mean it in the good and bad ways implied. This is not a high concept film, it's an action flick trying to find a niche in the supernatural thriller / action subgenre. Lots of shooting, hit and blowing shit up, but not a lot of character development or complex storylines. That sentence is both the good and the bad. I would have loved to have seen some more character development - this is a short film so they could have another 10 minutes in and nobody would have minded. Or they could have used it more humor. They had some bits that were kind of funny and they could have expanded on those and perhaps thrown in a few more. To be completely honest, I don't really mind that they didn't. This film is comparable to Van Helsing, though Jeremy Renner is a poor man's Hugh Jackman, but Gemma Arterton who is new to me, is easily as good as Kate Beckinsale, maybe even better. Which is kind of funny since the other movies this is comparable to are the Underworld series.
There is one thing that I really dislike about this movie, and that is the use of language by the characters, especially Hansel & Gretel, who do have more lines than anyone else. I don't mean profanities, 'shit' and 'fuck' have been in use for hundreds of years, I mean that modernity with which they speak. The story is set in Victorian times and while I certainly don't expect to be hearing 'doth' and 'thee', I don't want to hear the phrases "shitty little berg" and "fucking hillbillies" Berg and hillbillies would be completely foreign to the English then, and quite possibly still are. They just wouldn't know those phrases.
To counterbalance the language, there is one thing they did which I really like - Gretel. She totally kicked ass and took names, but even more importantly, at least as far as overcoming gender stereotypes, she took a beating, in almost every single instance far worse than Hansel takes. It's not because she's weaker, quite the opposite. Gretel is the dominant of the two and puts herself right int the thick of it. And she manages to do it while looking hot. Related to this is the fact that peolpe in this movie are allowed to get dirty / bloody, and stay that way until they get a chance to clean up. It seems more real, somehow. It certainly fits in with the graphic nature of this film.
This movie ends with a nice hook for potential sequels. It completely ties up all the lose ends, so you needn't worry about that, it just also shows you what might be at some future time. And I for one will gladly watch a sequel.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters on IMDb