GAAAAA - I REFUSE TO WATCH THAT MOVIE 'CAUSE I KNOW IT'S GONNA SUCK AND I HATE 'CHILDREN-FRIENDLY' ZOMBIE MOVIES AND I HATE BRAD PITT AND I HATE CGI AND... OH HELL, I JUST WATCHED THAT MOVIE! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?




World War Z (2013) UK/US Unrated Version

I love it when my husband decides to help me with reviews. We have one of "those" conversations:

He: You said you weren't going to watch that.

She: (Shrugging) It's on Netflix so I might as well.

He: You said it sucked.

She: It does.

He: Then why watch it?

She: (Attempting to point to name of blog, realizing blog is nowhere in sight, puts finger down.) Because it's here and I admit I'm kind of curious as to why so many people were so pissed at this movie.

He: But Brad Armpit is in it.

I like this one...

She: Yeah, I know.

He: He can't act.

She: (Sighs)

He: He's got two expressions and that's it.

She: I know, I know. He has smooth forehead and blank expression or wrinkled forehead and blank expression.

He: So what's the difference between the unrated and the PG-13 versions?

She: About six minutes.

He: You said CGI'd zombie movies were...

She: I KNOW!

He: (Sits down and gets comfortable.) Well, start it up.

Nice matte painting...

For those who say the movie is not anything like the book (and it's not - the only thing that the two have in common is the title and some zombies) - the movie The Shining was not Stephen King's, it was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. AND since Max Brooks sold the rights to his book to Brad Pitt's production company 'Plan B Productions' instead of overseeing a screenplay, it's not his anymore either. 

So here is BRAD PITT'S WORLD WAR Z, both PG-13 and unrated versions currently streaming on Netflix. And don't whine about the freaking thing having no REALD 3D (whatever the hell that is) - this was so bad that even though Netflix only costs $7.99 a month, I was tempted to demand my money back.

I put the title all in caps 'cause PITT is in almost every scene and it's obvious this is merely a massive ego trip. And we begin: The movie isn't even on for a single minute and already it's trying to make us feel guilty and responsible for the Zombie takeover - we ruined everything enough for the dead to get pissed and decide to take us out. In ONE MINUTE.

The "crowded" street look a la CGI

It's horrible from the very beginning - with good reason. And don't believe what you read in the IMDb about what happens and who says what - they had almost more mistakes than the movie did. Some things were obviously wrong or couldn't be verified, other mistakes they just plain missed. In fact, this freaking review took so long because of all the errors that I could have written a whole new screenplay. I should have - it would have been a hell of a lot better. 

PITT (I refuse to give character names, this is the PITT show) is driving his wife and two kids (one with asthma so you know at some point she's not going to have an inhaler, because that's a movie rule) through a packed Philadelphia street (which is nowhere in the US but in Glasgow, Scotland - like we wouldn't notice the UK traffic lights). 

View from back of PITT's silver car...

Then the continuity errors and just plain stupid stuff start instantly. Even without my husband there (he's got an eye for errors and is very helpful with that sort of stuff) it was plain that they didn't even TRY to make things right. Traffic is stopped cold, the whole street is a parking lot. But when a cop on a motorcycle stops to talk to PITT he's mowed down by a garbage truck speeding through... apparently the fourth dimension because there certainly ain't no room for it in the third.

...aaaaand the nice clean front view...

This garbage truck continues without slowing down or sustaining any damage to the front and supposedly continuing to plow its way through cars, although there was no way it could even get that far. Even though it knocked the cars to the side, since this is Scotland, I guess people were too polite to leave it that way, because looking back at PITT's car we see all the cars are neatly parked, none have been squished or moved, and traffic still fills the entire street. Nice and tidy.

Why does her phone show a whole different street?

And the truck, whose driver is inexplicably pumping the gas peddle (if he can't stop, why isn't he pumping the brakes or at least turning off the engine?) continues to flip cars right and left with the engine wound to the nuts (at least in the Foley studio) and yet they come back down perfectly and are still in their designated lanes. This is not an auspicious start to this horrid thing. FIVE MINUTES HAVE NOT EVEN PASSED.

PITT, in movie wisdom, also winds HIS car to the nuts (in the Foley studio) and drives five miles an hour behind the garbage truck. There is now not a single car on the road, no people, no crashed cars, no debris, only those parked diagonal (they were parallel before) on each side of the road.

As PITT continues this mad ride of 5 mph, the garbage truck continues to plow through the cars - as long as you look one way, because when the camera shoots from the opposite angle, there is NOTHING. On the sidewalk is a woman with her smart phone recording this non-emergency - or it would have if she'd been on the SAME street 'cause nothing matches up.

Ladies and gentlemen... the battery powered fish tank!

Why am I describing to death the first five minutes of the movie? BECAUSE THIS IS EXACTLY WHY THIS MOVIE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MADE IN THE FIRST PLACE. They got a book that they ignored, made up a ridiculous story, were given millions of dollars to dink around with, and we get crap. IT. SHOULD. NOT. HAVE. BEEN. MADE.

But PITT is saving his family, right? Umm, no. See, the street in Scotland they decided to use has very recognizable storefronts, plus way back at the intersection is another very recognizable building. In other words, according to the landmarks, they have gone NOWHERE.

By the time they FINALLY GET ONE BLOCK AWAY we see police officers just standing around, and police cars clearly parked to keep people out of the filming area. Wow. This is the worst beginning of a movie I've ever seen in my life. We have TWO HOURS of movie to go. My hubby says it was like watching a steaming pile for two hours. Envision that how you wish.

The first zombies finally show up, snarling and biting. In a convenient plot device (this is PITT's ego trip after all), PITT's daughter has a stuffed toy that counts to twelve, just the number of seconds it takes a bitten human to turn into a zombie. How convenient. These are your sprinting, parkour zombies that are only interested in running, jumping, knocking people down and biting them. Not eating, just biting. No blood, no gore, no taffy pulling in THIS piece of crap.

Hmm... where did PITT go? And why
is that ambulance driver wearing stunt clothes?

PITT shows off his impressive driving skills as he weaves through traffic that isn't there while turning around constantly and yelling at his kids (Don't make me pull over or...) - pfffft. Their car is hit on the driver's side by an ambulance - which appears, disappears, then appears again during the scene, then takes off without even slowing down (we think - if it was still there). Then the scene is finally, thankfully, over.

PITT is called back from retirement by somebody important (we assume) back to duty because apparently they want him out of the country to stop doing all of this dumb shit stuff. PITT, as it turns out (or as they wrote it), was a former UN Investigator. What the hell is that? Did he investigate war crimes? Violation of civil rights? Teaching forehead wrinkling 101?

Even PITT's boss doesn't get the
 concept of a satellite phone...

The government, or United Nations, or whoever the hell is in charge now, tells PITT if he doesn't do what they want, his family will be dropped right back into Philly (The sandwich? Great, now I'm hungry.), instead of lounging on the U.N. Command Ship, U.S.S Argus. The name of the ship apparently changed several times through several scripts but the Argus it is.

Wait a moment, I'm getting a little verklempt. Here, I'll give you a topic: The Argus is neither an aircraft carrier, nor a command ship nor an American ship. It's officially used as a hospital/mortuary ship by the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Discuss.

Okay, I'm feeling better now. He's given a satellite phone so he can keep in touch with his wife. His family are given the magic blankets so you know they will be all right.

This guy lives for about five minutes...

And we finally begin the movie (maybe). They've decided to send PITT on a tour around the world to find patient zero I guess, or at least a way to kill what is already dead. DUUUUUUH. Uh oh, PITT is worried, his forehead just wrinkled. PITT is put on a plane (don't even ask me to tell you all the things wrong with the plane please, I think my computer's about to crash from the DUH) with somebody who's supposed to be a leading authority on world diseases - and who will help them find a vaccine. This is Dr. Fassbach, an inexperienced virologist from Harvard. 

Dr. Fassbach's main argument for explaining zombies and the presence of a virus is the example of the Spanish Flu, a nasty wave of pestilence that swept the world. Now he gives figures, which were misquoted everywhere I looked so first I wrote down what he said, then started hunting. I had to - my brain was shutting down from an overload of DUH and looking at PITT's forehead.

So. Different sources (colleges, wiki, etc.) give different dates on when the Spanish Flu was active. The consensus is from 1918 (the end of WWI, how nice) to the beginning of 1920. Statistics on how many died were difficult - this was world-wide and they didn't have the reporting and recording capabilities of today so the total population that perished is anywhere from 3% to 5% of the world.

So Dr. Fassbach's data is a bit off - he says the Spanish Flu didn't exist in 1918. Um, yes it did. He then says by 1920 it killed 3% of the world. Okay, close enough. He bores us with the story of how this zombie outbreak is Mother Nature's fault. Wait a second - they just spent the first part of the movie saying WE did this - WTH? But he explains: "Mother Nature is a serial killer. No one's better. More creative. But like all serial killers, she can't help the urge to want to get caught. What good are all those brilliant crimes if no one takes the credit? So she leaves crumbs (clues). She's a bitch."

The infamous wall climb, pre-CGI...

Nice guy. Real compassionate. But that's okay, because as soon as they land in S. Korea (uh, don't ask why please), this idiot who was specifically told to keep his finger off of the trigger of his pistol doesn't so he slips, falls, and shoots himself in the head. First good thing to happen in the whole movie. 

Look like cheap plastic army guys, right?

Apparently PITT wanted to be the only hero so the other guy had to go. Oh well, they'll just keep flying - even though there's no real airports, gas or... shit, never mind. Their next stop: Jerusalem, because they built a freaking huge wall around the entire city a week before the outbreak. They knew it was coming? That's some pretty fast work. And impossible. And stupid. And why does PITT have to fly there to look at it?

Nope, still looks fake...

We figured that there could only be so many zombies that weren't CGI'd so they'd do some recycling - and they did. We had some mild amusement pointing at the screen every time we saw a zombie we'd already seen get mowed down pop up in another scene.

And it just keeps getting stupider. While PITT is there, some woman (thanks a lot, blame it on us) grabs a microphone and starts singing a song of thanks (...all in all we're just another brick... no wait, that wasn't it). Well gee whiz, in this version zombies go absolutely bat-shit crazy when they hear loud sounds so... ever seen a bunch of ants try to get across water? Hundreds die so that others can climb over them and get across safely. Yup, that's what we have here. On a computer somewhere. And if I ever find that IT Tech dropout that did this CGI work I'm going to kick his ass.

See? Smooth forehead - he's not
worried. I think. It's hard to tell.

Oh, speaking of zombie piles, you know the plastered-all-over-the-entire-damn-world movie poster of WWZ that shows the pile of zombies taking down a helicopter? Never happened. Ever. A helicopter did crash - it was near a roof and some zombies jumped on the runners. DUH.

So here come the Rakshasas. Hmm? Oh, small lesson for today to put some smarts back in since the DUH has ripped so much out... Rakshasas are Hindu demons that sort of have backward hands who eat human flesh. Meh, close enough to a zombie. To show a bit of a human factor and interest (WAY TOO LATE), PITT saves and drags along a female soldier he had to slice one bitten hand off of to keep her from becoming infected, through the rest of the movie for no discernible reason. And the script writers create a clue... the zombies want fresh, healthy meat - just to bite, not to eat. This is a kid-friendly movie (Pfffft!) so there will be NO TAFFY PULLING ALLOWED. They pass the sick and the elderly. YAY! Empty out the old folks home and... sorry, just kidding.

...must be afraid of heights...

PITT has to make another trip to Cardiff, Wales where the last remaining WHO (World Health Organization) is, even though there's no way the plane... never mind. Somehow zombies got on the plane, so PITT does the only natural thing - he throws a grenade. Natch. It causes the plane to crash, and in the realm of incredible coincidences, not only are PITT and the female soldier the only survivors of the plane full of people, they crashed in Wales. They make it to the WHO (Behind Blue Eyes is MY favorite), listening to the sound of cicadas. There are no cicadas in Wales. Bugger.

While at the fake-cicada filled Wales, PITT recovers from a wound from blowing up the damned plane. Meanwhile, PITT tries to maintain contact with his wife with the satellite phone. He's in some WHO bunker, she's down inside the fake command ship. Do we see the problem here? Do I really have to explain this one? SATELLITE phone? Anywho, when PITT disappears, the mucky mucks in charge say okay PITT family he's dead so you're worthless - off you go. Nice guys.

Uh oh, wrinkled forehead, I think we're in trouble...

Then they find out PITT is still alive dammit. Whoops. They have to tell him they jettisoned his family (sorry 'bout that dude). He's pissed but still has a job to do. They wrote him a way in the script to figure it all out. So PITT's big plan is get everybody really sick with diseases so the zombies don't eat 'em, kill the zombies (Again?), then heal themselves. Oooh, I would soooo want to do that. PITT volunteers to go into the zombie-infested area where all of the world's diseases are conveniently kept in one small room.

How come the zombie looks more alive than PITT?

One dried apple of a zombie checks him out so he's gotta inject himself now with something (I hope it's nasty). He uses a needle out of a drawer that has no packaging and looks like it's made of metal. How old is this thing? He'll die of tetanus before the pathogen hits. But the zombie no longer wants his body. Neither does anybody else. Except maybe Brangelina - for now.

Nice of 'em to include the boy,
considering they got his parents killed.

He gets back to the others and dammit he'd injected himself with a pathogen with a cure (and gets a tiny sterile needle too) so... yeah. We have a happy ending as he's reunited with his family in Nova Scotia as they set it up for the inevitable sequel - there's still zombies to fight, humans to save and, of course, more PITT expressions to not see. Because you saw the two of them. And that's all there is. Always.

HOW ABOUT A ZOMBIE MOVIE? NO? HOW ABOUT TWO ZOMBIE MOVIES? NO? WELL TOUGH - YOU'RE GETTING THREE ZOMBIE MOVIES - WHADDYA GOT TO SAY ABOUT THAT? PART ONE...

Dead Before Dawn 3D (2012) Canada

I just happened upon several zombie films by sheer desper... err, I mean sheer chance. The next movie on our Pure Terror Movie Marathon is an incredible stinker called Manster, a black-and-white movie with lots and lots of climbing scenes up an active volcano in suits, ties, and loafers, as well as another lesson about how crappy Americans are (according to this movie anyway). Yeesh.

So I found three films, one that seemed to be directed toward the teen set, one for adults, and one that showed that no matter how old you are, if the Zombie Apocalypse happens and they are Romero zombies, old persons with walkers can still get away clean.

Kevin McDonald's part was very, VERY small...

This one was interesting, dumb, a little bit funny, a little bit inventive, and a lot of entries into the land of incredible coincidences. For some reason, there's everyone's favorite crazy doc, Christopher Lloyd, a small role for Kevin McDonald (Kids In The Hall) and Rossif Sutherland (Keifer's half-brother, seen in the Lost Boys sequel). Since this film was Canadian, I didn't recognize any other names. 

This film had a lot to brag about; it is the first film shot in live action stereoscopic 3D, and for some reason they need to tell you that a woman directed it so they could say, unnecessarily, that this is the first Canadian stereoscopic 3D film directed by a woman. Okay.



Christopher Lloyd plays the grandfather of a boy named Casper. Yes, that is his name, Casper. The family owns a business called the Occult Barn. They never close. That means that both the grandfather and Casper's father trade off shifts in order to keep it open at all times. So already the setup is a little, uh, silly. 

When Casper was a small boy, an accident at the Barn took the life of his father. After that, Casper became afraid of everything. He also stayed far away from the family business, meaning that his grandfather practically lived in the place which, of course, is impossible. He's gotta sleep sometime.

One day, so we can get the movie started, his grandfather receives a trophy for a lifetime achievement at being a weirdo. Just kidding. But he does receive an award. So in order to get it, he asks Casper to watch the store while he's gone. Okay now we have our set up because Casper, being the typical teenager, brings all his friends with him. They of course don't believe in the occult and so they mess around the place, touching things are not supposed to touch, and picking up things they're not supposed to pick up.



The item that killed Casper's father was a strange looking urn with a skull on top. So of course they zero in on that same item because, as I said, this movie has to get started. Now these are all supposed to be college kids, and surprisingly enough, they looked like they might be. They're certainly stupid enough to be. But just to be sure I checked several of the actors profiles and found that their ages ranged from the early 20s and one was even in his 30s. Whoops. 

The woman who directs and produces, April Mullen, also gave herself a role in this movie. I could not find a page with her age on it, however, she seems to have been acting and directing for 10 to 15 years. I very much doubt that that puts her in the college-age range. 

This particular urn has a very nasty curse on it. Casper's father was killed just by touching it. But since this movie needs to move along, the kids are able to touch it, as well as toss it around like idiots. Of course, the urn falls to the floor and breaks. Casper's frantic. The others, however, since they don't believe in curses, make fun of him. 



Especially when he tells them that he does not know what the curse is. So, being kids, they decide to make up one of their own. This is that brief part of the movie that actually shows a little imagination. Each one adds their own little idea into this curse they make and so it goes as such:

After 10 o'clock that night, anyone who makes eye contact with them is compelled to commit suicide. They decide that the dead come back as zombies, but then changed their minds because the zombie idea has been played out. What about demons? one asks. No, we don't want demons. So one suggests, how about half demon and half zombie; a zemon. They agree. But that's not enough. 

One girl who is made to be oversexed, decides that zemons do not bite. They give you hickeys. When one receives a hickey, they become a zemon themselves. The oversexed girl adds one more little rule: If you are confronted by a zemon, they will become your slave forever if you French kiss them. Eww. What they don't know is, that if the curse is not broken before morning, it becomes permanent.

So as Casper cleans up, the rest go on their merry way; after all, there's a football game at the college that night. When 10 o'clock approaches, Casper becomes convinced that the curse is not going to happen. He goes down from his room to see his mother. She starts acting strange and ends up taking a toaster into the bathtub with her and becomes a zemon. Frantically, he realizes it's all coming true and runs to the college to warn his friends. But he's too late.



For some reason, at this particular college, football games apparently go on long after 10 o'clock at night because once 10 o'clock comes, the ones that are in the stands, the cheerleader, and the football player, all make eye contact with different people who immediately kill themselves and give hickeys to others. Soon all the game attendees are infected. And these are the fast zombies. Oh, excuse me, I meant zemons. These zemons sprint, jump over things, parkour and generally catch their prey with no problem.

The ones who created the curse decided to go back to the Occult Barn. There they find Casper's grandfather back from his award ceremony. Imagine my surprise and slight disgust when Casper's grandfather finds the urn broken and exclaims 'Great Scott!' Really? I mean, really? 

Anyway, he tells the idiots that the only way to break the curse is to restore the urn before dawn. He has a book that gives instructions on how to do this but they have to figure it out on their own, because they have looked him in the eye, so he crushes his own skull in with his trophy.

After the kids discover what they need to do to break the curse, we get a horrible montage of each kid finding some sort of weapon; mostly from household items. This takes forever. Or at least it just felt that way. And after Casper's grandfather explains (before he kills himself) that part of the ingredients they will need to and the curse is buried with Casper's greats grandfather, they feel the need to do yet another weapon gathering montage. 

It feels five times as long this time. They also need other items, some they will need to get at the college. Problem is, most of the zemons are also at the college. What to do, what to do. Stupid kids. And this is where the movie really starts to bog down. That was the problem with this film, it had some good ideas, but they never really followed through with them. You always felt like things were only halfway done. And even though the movie was only 88 minutes, because of those lapses it felt much longer.

So. They need the following items: Casper's great-grandfathers watch, a replacement urn (they decide to use a mug instead), and a human skull to seal it with. Thus, the trip to the college. They have the mug, Casper is in charge of digging up the grave, and the football player is in charge of taking a human skull from the biology lab. Why they didn't just use Caspers great-grandfathers skull (They're digging him up anyway, right?), I guess we'll never know.



But these are just stupid college kids. That means they fail. Miserably. Oh, they get the items all right, but they all die in the process. Casper is devastated, but he puts the new urn together as the book instructs. 

Then he notices that the book of instructions, after he follows the procedure, starts printing new instructions to complete. The final touch in order to break the curse is that an innocent life must be sacrificed. Since Casper is pretty much the only one left to live by this time, of course it's going to be him. He has a grenade. To break the curse he sets off the grenade, but just as it goes off the movie does that massive piss off that I hate with a vengeance: it resets itself.

Time goes backwards. Everyone dead is alive again, there is no curse, and although the kids remember what happened and the new urn is still a mug, everyone is all right. Shoot. Me. Now. We have the happy ending of all the stupid kids, somehow, graduating. Casper and his now-girlfriend visit his grandfather at the Occult Barn, explaining that they want to work for him to pay for their new apartment. 

So Horus (Casper's grandfather's name - see why I didn't want to use that before? Do you know how many words sound like 'Horus' to a dictation program?) is delighted because, since the Occult Barn never closes, he can now go on a vacation. Casper and his girlfriend look around but pay absolutely no attention to what they're doing, and as they begin making out… Say it with me… Saaaaay iiiiiit! 

They knock against the shelves and yes, they break the urn yet once again. They both look at each other and exclaim, 'We're dead!' Massive duh.

So, just like a lot of teen comedies or horror/comedies, this one had some interesting ideas. It was an almost-interesting premise, not very good acting though, plus the puzzling appearance by Christopher Lloyd, and just not enough juice to carry a full movie. Even though it was only 88 minutes, this story could have been told in an hour or less. 

It just didn't have enough of anything solid to keep the interest of the audience. If I actually graded things, this would get a C+ for effort, a D for story progression and special effects, a D- for the ending, and an F for shooting it in freaking 3D!

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FINALLY! THE FIFTY MOVIE MARATHON OF PURE TERROR CLASSICS... WILL NOT BE SEEN YET SO WE CAN BRING YOU THIS...

The Croods 3D (2013)

First let me say I don't like animated movies. Sorry. When I was little Disney scarred me for life and now... let's just say the only one I've seen that I've really liked is Shrek. The original. Part of that is that I guess I want a cartoon to look like a cartoon, not a brightly colored CGI version of some story. Especially when they throw the 3D aspect into it. Can't watch those at all - my eyes won't focus and I get a headache, plus I don't think they're worth the expense. I have to admit I kind of liked ParaNorman. BUT that movie was not for kids. Also a PG 3D animated story, it was a great one for a horror buff, a rotten choice to show the kiddies. And then we have this PG 3D story.

The hubby wanted to watch a movie with me and he can't stand my usual stuff and has little patience for TV shows or even TV cartoons - but when I mentioned that someone had said this movie was 'cute' he looked at it and decided to try it. Despite it having Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds in it. He shrugged and said, and I quote, "At least I won't have to look at them."

I don't have kids. If I did and I had to guess, I would say that this is a good movie for the kiddies - if you explain to the young ones (those under 10) that the movie might get scary in spots but everything will be okay. If your little one gets scared easily... this might be something you hold on to for a bit.

This movie goes fast and uses the usual plot devices in most animated stories. In this case though, the villain is the earth itself - that would be the scary part for the little ones. How do you fight or defend yourself from your own planet? How do you cope with losing everything you've ever known your whole life?

But you are the parents, you decide what your children watch so you also can decide what to discuss with them beforehand. Geez, that sounds like an after-school special, doesn't it? And then you can enjoy this neat little bit of expensive animation.

Since this is more of a recommendation than a review I won't go deep into the plot. Basically, it is a family of cave(persons?) with a rigid set of rules for survival. Their motto is 'Never not be afraid'. Then their world falls apart. Literally. And this time that word is used correctly. 

As things collapse, crack and generally destroys themselves, the Croods (the aforementioned family) reluctantly move on for the first time in their lives to find safety elsewhere. They are accompanied by a young boy named 'Guy' who seems to have lots of new ideas, to the consternation of the father of the family.

As they go through an incredibly colorful (but dangerous) world, each time they think they find a place that will be their new home - you guessed it, it collapses. I'm not sure what age the animators are trying to emulate, if they are picking one at all (I know just about nothing about this stuff - too much sleeping in school I guess) but if I took a shot in the dark I'd say it had something to do with the continents breaking apart. Or not.

Of course 'Guy' leads them through with his new ideas, the father Grug hates everything, the daughter Eep has a crush on Guy (seeing as how he's the only boy who exists outside her family) and the rest... just kind of follow. Each has their own personality and are good comic material.

Their dangers aren't just the earth trying to kill them of course - there are predatory animals and plants to keep things interesting. Like I said, this is a fast-paced film with lots of things for little ones to see and plenty of bright colors to keep their attention for the 98 minutes it takes the Croods to finally reach the destination they think will be their new home. Not bad - but no sequels please.

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I THINK THIS MOVIE WAS HALF-BAKED 'CAUSE IT WASN'T IN THE OVEN LONG ENOUGH...

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D (2013) Germany/US

Here's a new word to add to the new made-up words of the film industry to describe the crap being churned out at an alarming rate: mockbuster. This is of course a play on the word blockbuster and is mainly used by movie companies who see popular movies and immediately knock off their own copy. One main source of those kinds of movies is a company called The Asylum.

I'm not saying all their movies are crap, I have found a watchable movie or two, but mockbusters have made them some serious money. Okay, maybe not a ton, but some. Their version: Hansel & Gretel. Okay, not inventive but their catchphrase "A Classic Tale: Horrifyingly Real" is pushing it quite a bit. Real? The Brothers Grimm are twisting in their graves. And further down the movie evolutionary chain we've got Hansel & Gretel Get Baked. I don't think I have to explain that title, do I? Oh, and it's from the makers of Twilight - hey, where are you going? Get back here you cowards!

But we'll just talk about the witch hunters. You have the option of the 87 minute theater version, or the uncut 98 minute version that's supposed to have scenes "too intense" for the theater crowd. I saw both. My opinion is that there's a longer version so they can sell Blu-rays 'cause there's really no such thing as 'intense' CGI and that's what most of the effects were. 

Now I didn't watch the Avengers or any superhero movie made in the last few years (okay, okay I finally watched The Watchmen and it was awful) so although Jeremy Renner looked vaguely familiar to me, I couldn't place him so I looked around. Oh, he was Hawkeye. 'Kay. Apparently he was also in the Avatar crushing movie monster The Hurt Locker (didn't see either one). 'Kay. Gretel was played by Gemma Aterton who can be seen in Clash of the Titans or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Or not.

So. We have what is supposed to be the BLOCKBUSTER movie version here, the one so successful they're already making (if they're not already done) a sequel to it. How does it hold up? You know what I'm going to say about it, don't you?

Even if I put aside all the anachronistic hardware the brother and sister team wield through the movie, the taking of the original tale and screwing it all to high heaven, and the (sorry guys) not very enthusiastic performance of the characters, this still wouldn't be a very good movie. Not a BAD bad movie mind you, just not as good as I was hoping.

We start with the story - daddy takes the kids out into the woods at the bidding of his wife and tells them to get lost. Okay, he doesn't do that, but leaves them and they DO get lost - until they find that famous candy house. After being there long enough to give Hansel the 'sugar sickness' for the rest of his life (their word for diabetes I guess) they overpower the witch and... well, this part everybody knows. Hansel says that they learned there's only one thing to do with a witch - burn their ass. Cute.

The movie is a continuation of their life story. Woof. What can you say about the adult life of two children who kill for a living? They keep killing, they keep collecting the money. That's... about it. But since this is the BLOCKBUSTER version of the story (for 2013 anyway) they've got to shove a whole bunch more plot 'cause they've got lots of time to kill (sorry). So how out-of-time was this anyway? Well...

The Brothers Grimm (why they say it backwards I don't know) were Germans who grew in poverty but still managed to get an education. Later in life they became fascinated by the many folk tales of German and Scandinavian origin and decided to put them to paper. This was somewhere in the 1800s but the stories were much, much older. These weren't bedtime stories you told your kids to be nice. They were often violent, cruel tales that were more like a threat of punishment of some kind to children who misbehaved - soon to be sanitized by the likes of people such as the good folk of Disney.

So let's talk about the anachronistic (not belonging to this time period) stuff. First, Hansel and Gretel look like Neo and Trinity from The Matrix. Both are dressed in black leather outfits (metal rivets and all) with Hansel wearing a full length black leather coat. Hmm, maybe he was a Neo/Blade mix and she was a Trinity/Emma Peel mix. He certainly LOOKED like Neo when he bent over backwards to dodge an arrow - that was a pretty obvious ripoff and stupid besides.

Their weapons are patently ridiculous - if you could even find that much metal material to make weapons that haven't been invented yet, would you then meticulously carve patterns into them? I mean hey, seeing a Gatling gun take down flying witches was funny but c'mon (done by 'good witch' and beautiful Finnish actress Pihla Viitala). And giving Hansel diabetes? Really? The concept of the pancreas creating insulin to regulate sugar levels wasn't even discovered until 1869 and it was many years after that before it was synthesized for human use. What the hell is he injecting into himself? Fairy juice? And the syringe? Maybe if this was after the 1850s or so.

One more then I'll shut up - the phonograph. The player may have been around, okay, but it should have played a wax cylinder that looks like a scroll - not a flat round thing that looks like your grandparents 78's. There's more but I promised to shut up.

I had to laugh though as they travel through this Bavarian village as they offer the residents of the town their services as many children had gone missing. No, not about that part - the part where they had quarts of milk in bottles with 'missing children' posters on them. Pffft.

Famke Janssen is always a welcome sight and was good as the head witch Muriel. I wish she'd been in more of the movie, it would have been more interesting and more fun. So H&G are determined to wipe out all witches. In a silly attempt to smush subplots into that, we've got a big ceremony by the witches coming up that will make them impervious to fire. 

Because even though H&G drag around an army's worth of weapons and ammo, the sure thing that kills them is fire. Which is funny 'cause in the movie they get shot, beheaded, cut up with wire, heads bashed in... I would have concentrated on body armor instead of worrying about fire but that's just me.

Oh yeah, the other subplot. According to the original story (there's about a thousand versions) H&G's mom and dad don't wanna do it, but they're starving so they make sure their kids are lost in the forest. Later it becomes a father and their stepmother who wanted him to get rid of them so they all wouldn't starve. Putting sex over love (Why else would he do it?) he leads the kids waaay out and leaves them. In most versions it takes a couple of times before they are really lost. 

They find the witch's house made of candy... from here it goes pretty much as you've read it. The ending varies a bit. This borrows from even older tales - sometimes it's a giant that's outwitted by the kids, sometimes since the stepmother is used it is suggested that she and the witch are the same person, etc.

This one presents it to you like a big sugary cupcake with a foot of frosting on top. See, H&G's mom and dad had to hide the kids to protect them. Mom was a white (read good) witch, a powerful one, but one who could never hurt a human being. The townspeople are perfectly capable however. While the children wander lost, the mother is burned at the stake, their father hanged. 

As adults finding their old home they also find their mother's secret lair (apparently all witches have to have one) and a book of spells against black magic. How convenient. How... dumb. So that's why H&G are immune to spells and curses - they're part magic themselves. Uh huh. With the help of a white (again, white apparently equals 'good') witch Mina they find a spell to 'bless' their weapons and ammo and go to kick some serious witch ass.

If this is the 'too violent' part - c'mon guys. While some of the effects and gore are decent before this (an ogre stomping a guy's head into spaghetti sauce was pretty good) this is so CGI'd it was almost comical. After some go splat and some go poof and some just... go, H&G try to find Muriel (Famke Janssen, don't forget her...) and they end up at... say it with me.... SAAAAAAY IT.... the original candy house they were trapped in so long ago. Of course sugar doesn't hold too well and it looks icky now but could there be a bigger, more obvious plot device and place for a final battle? The answer is NO by the way.

A fight to the death ensues. It doesn't last long. H&G get Muriel with a shovel (all that fancy equipment and they use a shovel... sigh) and pin her down. Hansel holds the shovel on her throat. Gretel uses her weight on it to behead the witch. Hansel grabs the head and throws it in the oven. Uh huh.


Our last scene is of H&G and their new friends Edward (the troll) and Ben, a fan and future witch hunter as they travel around killing more witches and getting ready for H&G 2 no doubt...

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