“One thing this job has taught me over the years: Don’t eat the f*cking candy.”
— Hansel (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters)
Sometime before he shot the then-hotly-anticipated Bourne Legacy and future blockbuster Avengers, Jeremy Renner did Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. It’s coming out later this month. And it looks terrible.
“Hmmm. No.”
Sadly, I may have to watch it. Or do I? Yes, I cannot resist JRen in black leather. And his pretty blue eyes almost — ALMOST — distracted me from cringing while I watched the trailers. However, as my friend Sheila says, by watching our favorite actors’ bad movies, we are only enabling them to make bad career choices.
And almost as though Hollywood wants to mock me even harder, Famke Janssen shows up.
(I hate you, Hollywood.)
Look, it’s already been established that all those “witches” people had been hunting down and burning for centuries were really just women who lived alone, and were maybe a little odd. Some of them may have even just shunned society because of its prevailing mandate that women should live to serve their husbands. Or just didn’t feel like going to Church together with the rest of the community. Hipsters, in other words. Or, as in the Middle Ages, a person someone wanted to get rid of because the latter wanted the former’s land or his wife or his job. Because once you’re accused of being a witch, you’re pretty much screwed. There were no actual witches, not the ones who cast spells, ate children or made people sick. The term witch has since then been co-opted by certain pagan religious groups. I’ve met pagans, they’re nice.
This movie is particularly douchey in the light of the recent news of the torture and murders of children because they were thought to be “witches”, in different parts of the world. (Yes, to all those who say there’s no harm in superstition, shut the fuck up.) I’m not saying we shouldn’t do fairy tales anymore. Or that letting children read “Cinderella” and “Snow White” is endangering stepmothers. Fairy tales are wonderful because, as someone once put it, they remind us that monsters exist, and, more importantly, they can be defeated. All I’m saying is, let’s not be douchey.
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