Last week, I reviewed Frozen, and how I somewhat liked it, but with Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, I will have to say that I really didn’t like it.

I will have to say that one of the reasons that I didn’t like it was one of the same reasons I didn’t like Frozen. The problem is the film tries to put a modern spin on its concept, so it uses dialogue and other modern-day mannerism what wouldn’t pass during that time period. I will explain what I mean later, but let’s talk about the concept.

As you might have guessed from the title, the story is about Hansel and Gretel, now fully grown-up and essentially overcompensating for their Grimm childhood trauma by taking out witches. Just think of something like Ghostbusters but not so much of an emphasis on profit. I have to admit that there is a lot of potential for something like this, but if someone were to offer me the job of adapting this premise into a screenplay, I wouldn’t exactly be anxious to take this an run with it.

As you can see by the poster, Hansel and Gretel are witch butt-kickers with Gretel using a crossbow and Hansel using a gun that is the most obvious phallic symbol in movie history. If you don’t know what a phallic symbol is, just watch actor Jeremy Renner pose with it a various points in the film.

The film has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, with an opening that shows a village in the who-cares century where there is a missing child. We know this because it shows the kid’s face on milk bottles as the milk is being delivered in the morning. Seriously, are they trying to show me this is how we got the tradition of putting missing children on milk cartons? As I mentioned before, this film’s attempt at trying to make modern jokes is awful.

Later on, there is a scene where a character is a big fan of Hansel and Gretel. You guessed it, this film has its own fanboy, on-screen! Again, another dumb modern day reference.

Much of the film is pretty unnecessarily gory, and I actually wished that this film had been re-tooled for younger audiences, but it still wouldn’t have been good.

The rest of the film is pretty much what you would expect: the big case. In this case, the witches are trying to cast this spell that makes them immune to fire, because that would stop them from being burned at the stake. I actually think this is what the plot boils down to.

This film came out in 2013, which was a terrible year for fantasy films. There was Jack the Giant Slayer, and the last Hobbit movie, which I should probably get around to talking about next week.