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.

A CREATURE FEATURE THAT'S GOOD, ENTERTAINING, AND HIGHLY AFFORDABLE...

Grabbers (2012) Ireland/UK

As a creature feature and self-described cult film, this movie seems to be very polarizing - people either loved it or hated it. I'm not sure why feelings either way were so strong - like the very popular Tremors, this film was simply what it was supposed to be - a bit of fluff to enjoy with a bit of a story and a big monster. No big whoop.

Forward Films is spanking new. They have only three movies under their belt, including this one, with a Danish Western of all things due to be shown at the Cannes Festival on May 17, with a release date of October 2, 2014. Although it is Danish it was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa (?!?)

Of course, even though I liked the movie a lot, I've still got all my snarks in a row - but since this is mostly Miss Mayhem's

review, I'll just butt in with one or five or so throughout. She enjoyed it also, and was very relieved when I assured her it was nothing like the movie Alien (by the way, we lost an extremely talented Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer who, besides working on the original Alien movie was also known for his art on famous album covers, as well as an, ahem, unique microphone for Korn's Jonathan Davis - H.R. Giger, who was 74, passed away May 13, 2014).

Before I could really get going though, Miss Mayhem reminded me of a few things - one, it's a film from Ireland who really don't have a ton of horror movies out there (true - the wiki only lists 19, but then again I don't know what years they cover). Two, they did a pretty decent job of balancing both actual models and CGI versions of the 'monster' - especially since they only spent what in US dollars equaled around $6.7 million which is.... damned cheap really. Watch the movie - it WILL impress you. So she begins:

Miss Mayhem: Our movie starts on an island off the Irish coast which is just beautiful... which island? Umm... 

Miss Murder: Ireland is itself an island and the list of smaller 'islands' goes on for miles - and those are off the ocean. You should see the list for those on lakes and rivers. But this says Erin Island which may be an inside joke because Erin means both "Ireland" and "west" - the name given by Scotland. But this island (whichever it actually is) IS very beautiful with small towns and rolling hills and beautiful beaches... hmm, I think I know where I want to live. For this movie they had two locations: Belfast, County Antrim and County Donegal. Apparently it was one of the coldest winters they've had in a long time and shooting the film was pretty miserable to everybody.


Miss Mayhem: So at the start, a fishing boat is out at night when they see a massive bright light in the sky which plummets into the ocean...

Miss Murder: And no meteorologist or astronomer saw this coming? Huge fireballs out of the sky and they just sneak up on us?

Miss Mayhem: Ahem. Soon the three on the boat are killed by... something. The next day pilot whales are found washed up on the beach, ripped to pieces. I was relieved to find that one was a prop, the rest were digital.

Miss Murder: LOTS of CGI in this one...

Miss Mayhem: A local named Paddy (yes, I know), who's the colorful town drunk (besides Coyle) finds one in a lobster trap (obviously a small one) and puts it in his bathtub to keep it wet. He's not worried about safety, he's mostly thinking of money. Meanwhile we have two policepersons (called Garda, and definitely not carrying sidearms) Ciarán O'Shea (Richard Coyle), who drinks constantly since his wife left him, and his new partner for two weeks while another is on vacation, a volunteer named Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley). 

But even though Paddy's 'alien' is small enough to fit in the lobster trap, it's nasty enough to first spit... something all over him, then attack him with what I thought was a tentacle but apparently it's a tongue. It tries to drink Paddy's blood...

Miss Murder: Wait, wait, wait, WAIT... what??? Let's get this straight for the reader. An alien. From space. Crashes unseen to earth (okay the ocean). It needs water and BLOOD? What, did it come from Blood Planet? Planet Of The Bloody Creatures? Planet...

Miss Mayhem: This is not MST3K and we are NOT riffing, okay? Paddy beats the alien to death (he thinks) and takes it to the local marine ecologist...

Miss Murder: Because every small island has to have...

Miss Mayhem: Shhhhh. You're sick, remember? Let me drive. Despite the ecologist wanting to find the genus of the species...

Miss Murder: Did you say genius?

Miss Mayhem: What, you can't read now either? Go sit over there and play with your Wii.

Miss Murder: I don't have a...

Miss Mayhem: READ A BOOK! Anyway, Paddy is determined to call the thing a 'Grabber' since that's what it did to him. The name sticks. Since by now several people have been murdered (they found one severed head - not very real looking but for a small budget film not bad) they wonder why Paddy's still alive. They're quick to figure out (this film's 94 minutes so they gotta move along so you can see the REAL monster) that this alien that somehow needs Earth's water and blood cannot take alcohol (which Paddy thinks is a food group).

Miss Murder: In this land of incredible dumbity and coincidences, a severe storm is coming which means there's no help coming from the mainland - AND there'll be lots of water to keep the other monster very happy (they figured the captive one was female when they discovered she was full of eggs - each one the size of her body - ouch!). They also discover that the male is the size of a house. Okay, we've got the setup for the next silly bit.

Basically, every person left on the island (many had gone to the mainland at the beginning of the film, probably so they wouldn't be stuck in this movie) has to meet at the pub and get stinking drunk in order to keep them safe from the CGI monster.

Miss Mayhem: It wasn't all CGI - they had close ups so they did have quite a bit of real models so it was a pretty neat combination.

Miss Murder: With some movie duh mixed in...

Miss Mayhem: Later. The two Garda draw the people into the pub by declaring that the alcohol is free. They had gotten the newbie drunk (she usually doesn't drink) to find out how much one has to drink to equal Paddy's BAC (that's blood alcohol lever by the way) of .20 and they figure eight pints each at least. They think that's a lot.

Miss Murder: Meh, I've seen one blow .42 before and he was still breathing.

Miss Mayhem: Good for you. 

Miss Murder: Everybody starts to have a good time and all of a sudden they're singing an Irish drinking song that sounds... very familiar. I'm listening as close as I can (it's on the jukebox and their singing is pretty slurred but the one I knew was this (not my video of course, but enjoy):

They, of course, are not the only ones who have re-done this song. I had always wondered why Metallica (with recently shorn locks that upset the metal world) would sing;

I first produced my pistol and then produced my rapier. I said: "Stand and deliver or the devil he may take ya". Musha ring dum-a do dum-a da,Whack for my daddy-o, Whack for my daddy-o, There's whiskey in the jar-o.

The rest of the words to Whiskey In The Jar depend on whose singing the song - The Dubliners, The Grateful Dead, Thin Lizzy, or Metallica. What were the original words? Since it's thought that the song began somewhere in the 17th century, no one is exactly sure.

Everyone gets stinking drunk, except for Garda O'Shea (Coyle) who volunteered to stay sober to keep everyone safe. But the drunk marine ecologist decides he wants a 'selfie' of the monster and him for National Geographic (and Facebook - his words). He's right in that the monster can't eat him, but it does fling him for what looked like over a mile - and he's dead.

Miss Murder: Are you sure? Did you see the body?

Miss Mayhem: I have duct tape and I'm not afraid to use it. Next to go outside is a gentleman who doesn't want to wait in line for the bathroom.

Miss Murder: The Piss Of Death.

Miss Mayhem: Do we have to....

Miss Murder: THE PISS OF DEATH!!! Or at least it would have been, but he's rescued by the two Garda who've been in their vehicle watching the building. There apparently were a lot of eggs so now we have 'Attack Of The Killer CGI Babies'. Or, to be more graphic, big nasty slugs with round, teeth filled mouths.

Miss Mayhem: Even drunk and without the ecologist, they

figure the huge male is looking for his mate. Paddy makes a comment that the male must smell his mate near the building which is why he's there. O'Shea realizes that the female, who had spit on him also when the 'dead' thing had revived (until they bludgeoned it to death - again) so he 'smells' enough for the male to follow, determines to lead the thing to a construction site. 

Miss Murder: What could they possibly be constructing on a small fishing island? I mean the hole they're leading it to is freaking deep...

Miss Mayhem: Let me tell this, okay? Just take another pain pill. The male monster follows them to the site...

Miss Murder: (slurring words a little) Wait a sec, I remember something...

Miss Mayhem: Go lie down or something.

Miss Murder: No no - this is where I was bashing the CGI really good. See, they're in the pouring rain - I mean soaking wet rain with this huge monster which I know is mostly CGI...

Miss Mayhem: And?

Miss Murder: Well, look at it bit by bit. The shot of O'Shea and Nolan has pouring rain and them soaking wet. Then it cuts to the monster - wet, no rain. Back, rain. Back, no rain. Back, rain...

Miss Murder: I think there's a chocolate bar left in the fridge. Good girl. Now to finish: We get a tense finish as the plan to lure the monster onto a forklift (the idea being to keep it out of water and let the sun kill it) is a no go because there's no forklift - then O'Shea falls into the big hole and hurts his leg. The 'Grabber' jumps in to kill him - and is pinned to the earth as a drunken Nolan, who had found a large piece of equipment, drives it right into the hole on top of the monster, pinning it down and keeping it there.

It's not dead however, and grabs O'Shea again - but he was just given a bottle of the stuff Paddy's been making and it did not like it a bit. Nolan grabs the flare gun they had (with no weapons they were reduced to things like super soakers and household items) and shoots explosives that are conveniently left in the open at the bottom of the pit. After O'Shea gets out of the way of course.

Now it's morning and the two Garda are walking back to town. Then we see the beach, and at least five more monster eggs, one beginning to hatch.

I'm going to end this before Miss Murder finishes her candy bar.

❦❦❦ Miss Mayhem ❦ ❦ ❦

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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