Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is a fairy tale remix that’s Grimm in all the wrong ways, a one-joke premise that’s stretched paper-thin before the end of the first reel. Its title will remind many of last year’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” a goofy comic-book actioner in which America’s 16th president was reimagined as an axe-wielding slayer of bloodsucking ghouls. A similar concept is explored here, with the eponymous siblings growing up to become killers of witch-folk, but with less fun to be had this time round: while it was kind of amusing watching Timur Bekmambetov’s 2012 effort put a supernatural spin on US history, it’s not so amusing watching this messily directed fantasy dud half-heartedly poke fun at a 200-year-old fairy tale.

It is the telling of this well-known tale that serves as the film’s opening. You know the drill. Abandoned by their father in the middle of the deep, dark woods, young brother and sister Hansel and Gretel happen upon a cottage made of candy. Within the cottage is a wicked old witch who enslaves them, fattens them up and plans on eating them. As the witch prepares to cook Hansel alive, Gretel breaks free from her chains, boots the bitch into the oven and roasts her on an open flame — as the narration usefully points out, fire is essentially a witch’s kryptonite.

Years later, they’ve gone pro. Now played by Jeremy Renner (“The Bourne Legacy”) and Gemma Arterton (“Song for Marion”), Hansel and Gretel hunt witches for a living, ridding towns and villages of infestations “Van Helsing”-style, using a full-blown arsenal of high-tech weaponry — double-ended crossbows, rapid-fire Gatling guns, etc. — to send them cackling to Hell. But they may have met their match in the snow-dappled German town of Ausburg, where children are being abducted for a "Moonblood" ritual sacrifice, the completion of which will make the local coven impervious to fire.

That “Blade"-inspired detail aside, “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" does nothing interesting with its titular monsters: they’re just bog-standard spell-casters who ride on broomsticks, stand around bubbling cauldrons and conjure up spells with a flick of their wrist — if only they had conjured up a sharper script. Famke Janssen (terrific as Jean Grey in the “X-Men” franchise) tries her damndest to be menacing as the powerful witch Muriel, but truth be told, Anjelica Huston was much more terrifying as the Grand High Witch in Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “The Witches” — that gruesome make-up job still haunts my nightmares.

The action is handled with routine slickness and is startlingly blood-splattered: witches are decimated, delimbed and decapitated with frequency and viscerality, their icky innards spattering wildly. Writing and directing is Tommy Wirkola, maker of “Dead Snow,” a blackly comic Norwegian horror in which Nazi corpses rose from their graves. He’s clearly been inspired in his career by Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead" trilogy, but without the wacky invention of those three films, the action of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" quickly succumbs to noisy monotony. The film must be commended, however, for its admirable use of practical stunts and effects, particularly in the creation of a noble but dimwitted troll named Edward (Twihards, fret not: this Edward’s no RPatz).

As for our two leads, they do good with limp material. Renner, who established himself as a capable action star in “The Bourne Legacy” and “Marvel's Avengers Assemble,” and Arterton, a Londoner pulling off an impeccable American accent, fully convince as smartmouthed, gunslinging badasses — Arterton in particular makes for a formidable hunter of witches, and I wouldn’t mind seeing her kicking butt in future action roles. In spite of this, neither of them can overcome the film’s fatal flaw: at its centre is an identity crisis, the same crisis that plagued “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” — does Mr. Wirkola's English-language debut wish to be a grizzled, balls-to-the-wall actioner or a tongue-in-cheek slapstick spoof?

It is a question that’s never answered, and as a result, it’s difficult to ascertain whether or not we’re meant to be taking any of this seriously — how can we when we spot Will Ferrell’s name in the opening titles (he’s producing alongside regular comedy collaborator Adam McKay)? To the film’s credit, it has no pretentions beyond being a big, dumb action movie, or, if you will, fast food entertainment. Trouble is, when I eat fast food, I enjoy it. Watching “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” was more akin to eating a trail of soggy breadcrumbs left out in the rain.

4/10