Movie Reviews: Beautiful Creatures vs Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

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images from imdb.com

 

I most of the day to myself on Sunday so I ran some errands and then hit up our local Red Box. For those who don’t know what Red Box is, it’s this magical box and with the wave of a hand it dispenses the movie(s) of your true heart’s desire. Ok, it’s really just a vending machine where you can rent movies for $1 or $1.50. Anyway, I ended up choosing Beautiful Creatures and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. It was a pure coincidence (or lack of anything better in the magic box) that I chose two witchy movies.

As with my review of Warm Bodies & World War Z I may include some minor spoilers. Also, I should point out that I have not read Beautiful Creatures so this post is based solely on the movie.

I’ll refer to Beautiful Creatures as BC and Hansel & Gretel as H&G.

Types of Witches

The witches in BC prefer to be called Castors…blah, blah, blah, you say potato I say…potato (hhmm, that saying doesn’t really work in text does it?). Anyway, the Castors look like normal people and not like the stereotypical wrinkly, green skinned witches of lore. In this movie, there are good and bad Castors, also known as dark and light. The movie is about which will claim Lena on her 16^th birthday.

H&G also has good and bad witches. The bad witches (this is where some of the cheesiness comes in) look closer to what you think when you think of witch but really in this movie they look partially evil and partially corny.

slight spoiler in 3…2…1…The good witches look like normal people. That’s only a slight spoiler because in the beginning you, as well as Hansel & Gretel, only know about bad witches.

 

Goals of the Witches

In BC, the dark Castors want Lena to be evil and the light Castors want her to be claimed for the light. Dark vs Light and Good vs Evil. Which side will win the battle?

The goal of the witches in H&G is to take over the world, of course. What evil being doesn’t want world domination?!

 

Movie Genre

BC is more of a romantic drama…if there is such a genre. There is also the slight fantasy element added in the mix.

H&G also has the fantasy aspect, perhaps a bit more than BC but for the most part I would consider it to be an action movie. The hard core action movie fans of the world may debate that classification but really Hansel & Gretel pretty much have made their life about hunting, fighting, and killing witches which sounds like action to me.

 

My Thoughts

BC didn’t impress me and, from the beginning, Ethan’s voice really annoyed me! The tone of his voice and the over-the-top accent just grated on my nerves. I know that’s a strange thing to harp on but I couldn’t help it. His annoying factor did ease up here and there which was a relief.

 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only thing that I didn’t enjoy. Overall the acting, the special effects, the insta-love, and even the plot all fell flat for me. I don’t think I’ll be watching BC again and I don’t plan to watch any movies that follow.

H&G may have had some cheesy aspects (i.e. the makeup/costumes used for the witches, the noises that the witches make, etc.) but I liked it a lot more than BC. H&G is a fun and entertaining adaptation of a classic tale. It’s one of those movies that you can watch multiple times and one that would make great background noise as you go about your household ‘chores’. As I alluded to above, the action scenes may not have been the best ever but really who cares, not every movie has to be top notch to be enjoyable.

 

Have you seen Beautiful Creatures or Hansel & Gretel? What did you think? Did you enjoy them?

 

Other Recommendations

 

I don’t have too many witch movies coming to mind right now but if you’re looking for a romancy witch movie then maybe check out Practical Magic. It’s a little older (1998) and the darker parts of it are a bit corny but I'm a Sandra Bullock fan so I like it. :)

Bewitched is another lighter romantic comedy. Despite my having a very hard time seeing Will Ferrell as a dreamboat and the apple of someone’s eye (no offense Will) the 2005 version of Bewitched is my favorite.

 

Thanks for reading!