Even Jeremy Renner Can’t Save This 17% RT Horror-Themed Fantasy Epic

In 2013, Jeremy Renner was at the height of his game, following his roles in The Avengers and The Hurt Locker. However, this fame was not a magical spell that could protect him from ill-conceived plots. Hawkeye himself would go on to star with Gemma Arterton in the poorly received fantasy film, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Gaining a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film envisioned a world where, after the famous fairy tale characters survived their run-in with a cannibalistic witch, they continued their education and became bona fide witch hunters in adulthood.

Fairy tales such as these remain timeless, and perhaps there could have been a decent movie to come out of this concept. However, the film was stuck in a limbo between camp and horror. Hansel & Gretel wasn’t quite silly enough for the audience to buy into the more ridiculous plot elements, and it wasn’t serious enough to be a real horror film surrounding witches. The result was an unfortunate film that wasted Renner’s talents. Hansel had one of the more creative personality traits that missed the mark. Because of Hansel’s childhood experience with candy at the witch’s house, he develops some sort of magical form of diabetes where he has to take insulin shots. If the film had added more enjoyably silly moments like these, it could have been a success. As luck would have it, it missed out on camp and the growing popularity of witches in popular media.

‘Hansel & Gretel’ Missed the Horror Surge

Hansel & Gretel was an unfortunate miscalculation, despite Jeremy Renner’s genuinely enjoyable performance in the film. Only two years later, Robert Eggers would come out with the definitive film capitalizing on evil witches in an era long since passed. The 2015 film, The Witch, went in the exact opposite direction, taking material from real New England accounts to weave a tense horror film, also showing cannibalistic witches who were true villains. In some respects, it seems that was where Hansel & Gretel were trying to take the film.

Famke Janssen stars in Hansel & Gretel as Muriel, the dark, grand witch who controls the local coven. They deal in black magic, mainly targeting children in their ritual. Hansel & Gretel learn that the coven is planning to sacrifice children in a spell which would allow them to be impervious to fire. Had the film leaned into child murder and cannibalism as dark elements, it could have been an interesting update to a well-known tale. Instead, the buckets of blood and Gatling guns undermined the tone and made the film’s thesis a little unclear.

Despite this setback, Renner continues to be a talented performer in and out of the Marvel universe. When he isn’t putting his comedy chops to the test as Clint Barton, he has been in some of the most moving dramas of the modern age. In addition to 2008’s The Hurt Locker, he also appears in Taylor Sheridan’s best film, Wind River. There is also something to be said for entertainment value in films. While Hansel & Gretel may not be remembered as a classic, there is still some enjoyment to be had in seeing Renner’s Hansel obsessively handling a pump-action shotgun in the face of evil witches. Viewers can see that for themselves by streaming Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters on Paramount+.