Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters: The siblings grow up, turn anachronistic, and get girlfriends. With nude Thomas Mann bonus.

Remember Hansel and Gretel, the Grimm fairy tale about a father who tries to kill his children by abandoning them in the woods, whereupon they stumble upon a candy house, and a witch who wants to eat them, but they turn the tables and burn her alive?

A very pleasant bedtime story for toddlers.

In Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), the siblings grow up into a pair of wisecracking, martial-arts-using witch slayers (Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton), who travel all over 17th century Germany with their arsenal of gigantic phallic-symbol guns.

By the way, Jeremy Renner seems to be somewhat homophobic.  Addressing the rumors that he's bisexual because he's living with both his girlfriend and Griffin Hadley, he cursed "they're not f*** true!"  Same thing when he dumped both to move in with Kristoffer Winters: "Believe whatever you f*king want!"

On to Hansel and Gretel: While investigating a mass child-disappearance in Augsburg, they run uncover a plot to bring hundreds of witches together for a Blood Moon Ritual.  They also find the answer to the secret of their past: why did their parents abandon them in the woods?

On the way, Hansel gets a girlfriend, but he also gets a nice gay subtext with the fanboy Ben (Thomas Mann), touching him repeatedly on the chest, riding with Ben's arms around his waist, and finally inviting him to join the witch-hunting team.

There are frontal and rear photos of Thomas Mann on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Meanwhile, Gretel expresses no heterosexual interest, although she does get an unexpected ally in a gigantic troll (Derek Mears), who also joins the team.  In the last scene, they're fighting a "sand witch" in the vast desert of 17th century Germany.

This is a very bloody movie; a scene involving the mass-execution of dozens of witches is particularly disturbing.  And I didn't like the anachronistic dialogue ("Awesome!") and technology: they have machine guns, phonograph records, tasers, and hyperdermic syringes.  But the people are attractive (at least, all of the good people are attractive), and there's plenty of gay subtexts.  

My Grade: C  

See also: A date with Kris (who may not be Jeremy Renner's boyfriend) leads to Christopher Atkins' dick