Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters * * 
Cert 15, 88 mins

Jumping on the fairytale bandwagon, this offering looks decent enough on paper.

Jeremy Renner of Mission Impossible and Bourne fame and Bond girl Gemma Arterton are good actors. So in theory, they should have no problem joining other recent fairytale films like Snow White and the Huntsman and Red Riding Hood, with Jack: The Giant Killer and Maleficent, based on Sleeping Beauty, to come.

And Will Ferrell is one of the producers, so it ought to be funny, right? Wrong. It’s not unwatchable, but it is dull, repetitive and no fun at all.

It starts with the siblings – German, we imagine, but with American accents – abandoned in the forest and then trapped in a gingerbread house by a witch.

The children manage to fight back and burn the witch, which is just the start of their campaign against the purveyors of black magic.

Fifteen years later, they’ve grown into well-armed bounty hunters, paid to kill witches and, in their latest case, bring home a dozen children who have been snatched.

Gretel can headbutt with the best of them and is a fine shot with a crossbow. Hansel, though, is slightly hampered by having diabetes, brought on by being forced to eat all those sweets as a child.

The witches are gnarled creatures who fly on broomsticks. They’re horrible old crones apart from ‘grand witch’ Muriel (Famke Janssen), who manages to be quite pretty even with a pointed chin.

The 3D tricks are nothing new. The standard of the film can be summed up when a villager explodes in front of his neighbours, flinging body parts and blood everywhere, and one of them says: “That was awesome!” Charming. I really don’t know why Renner and Arterton signed up for this, as they must have seen the script and plot were underpowered.

There are no good lines or jokes, just a lot of fighting in the woods which quickly grows tiresome.

Actually, the funniest moment is when we learn that an ugly troll is called Edward, the name previously bestowed upon a sexy vampire. With its 15 certificate and gory scenes, this is no fairytale for kids, but adults are advised to give it a miss too. RL

Broken City * * *
Cert 15, 108 mins

This political thriller begins with NYPD cop Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) shooting dead a young black man.

He claims it was self-defence and escapes a murder charge (or perhaps that should be ‘murrrder’, given his name). But is it coincidence that the victim had walked free from a rape and murder trial – and that Taggart is dating the sister of the girl he was accused of killing?

The Mayor of New York, Nick Hostetler (Russell Crowe), knows that Taggart was taking the law into his own hands but regards him as a hero. Still, it’s a tad controversial so it might be best if Taggart quits the force.

Fast forward seven years, when Taggart is now working as a private investigator, taking photos of adulterers. Hostetler is on the eve of an election and hires Taggart to find out who his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta Jones) has been seeing.

Taggart finds himself mixed up in a murky tale of corruption, secrets and murder.

I wouldn’t call it gripping, but it’s compelling enough to make you keep watching – and the performances lift a script which could be better.

Crowe is especially good as the Mayor, who manages to be menacing despite his bad haircut, poor taste in knitwear and strange orange tan.

“Everything I do is for this great city,” says Hostetler. He’s wrong.

They can’t hide plot holes, though, like the laughable moment when Taggart oh-so-easily finds incriminating evidence. There might as well be a sign saying ‘look here for what you need’. RL

Safe Haven * *
Cert 12A, 115 mins

I spent most of this film wondering which of the characters was going to die, before realising the death had already occurred.

It’s based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, you see, and they follow a familiar format.

Usually set on the coast in North Carolina, they are saccharine sweet romantic dramas, pulling on our heartstrings when someone dies. Think The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John and The Last Song.

But Safe Haven is slightly different, injecting a thriller element rather than setting out to make us cry.

The death occurs before the film begins, as Alex (Josh Duhamel) loses his wife to cancer.

He’s left to bring up his two children, including a horribly precocious girl, working in a grocery shop in a small fishing town in North Carolina.

That’s where Katie (Julianne Hough) flees from Boston. Renting a wooden shack deep in the woods, she clearly wants to be left alone, but what is she running from?

Dogged Boston detective Kevin Tierney (David Lyons) certainly seems desperate to track her down.

Katie gradually – too gradually, as it’s very slow-going – starts to become part of the community, getting a job as a waitress and getting to know Alex.

It takes at least an hour before it starts to get remotely interesting with an unlikely plot twist or two.

Shot by Lasse Hallstrom, it washes over you pleasantly enough and isn’t a trial to watch.

But it’s not a satisfying experience either. The plot holes are so big that you can drive a bus through them and you’ll come out of the cinema asking ‘But why didn’t...?’ about many things. And a final ludicrous turn of events is a twist too far. RL

Arbitrage * * *
Cert 15 107 mins

One of the better films of the week is this tale from Richard Gere.

He is on top form as millionaire New York financier Robert Miller, desperate to sell his trading empire so he can plug a hole in the books.

He needs the merger to go ahead before anyone spots his dodgy dealing.

That alone might be enough pressure to set him unravelling, but then something else happens.

On the eve of his 60th birthday, he’s driving his mistress, French artist Julie (Laetitia Casta), when he falls asleep at the wheel, crashes his car and kills her.

Instead of calling for help, he flees the scene of the accident.

Detective Bryer (Tim Roth), investigating the crash, is suspicious of Miller’s involvement but can he pin anything on him?

Miller’s answer to everything is to buy his way out of trouble. “You think money’s going to fix this?” he’s asked at one point. “What else is there?” he replies.

Susan Sarandon doesn’t get too much to do as his wife, but there are some strong performances. It’s good to see Stuart Margolin, best known as James Garner’s former cell mate Angel in The Rockford Files, as Miller’s lawyer Syd.

Not a huge amount happens, though suspense does eventually build. Some of the dialogue, like the film’s title, is tricky to understand without financial knowledge.

But Gere is just about charismatic enough to carry it off. RL

To The Wonder * *
Cert 12A, 113 mins

Ben Affleck’s Argo has just been named this year’s best picture winner at the Oscars.

After starring in such appalling movies as Gigli, Jersey Girl and Surviving Christmas, the rise of his own actor-director movies Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo has been one of the miracles of modern Hollywood.

His new master here is Terrence Malick, a director who likes to infuse his movies with beguiling thought processes.

As if to prove you can have too much of a good thing, To The Wonder moves along at a dream-like pace without even hitting third gear.

Neil (Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) meet in France and relocate to Oklahoma, where Father Quinana (Javier Bardem) is another outsider and Jane (Rachel McAdams) is Neil’s reacquainted childhood sweetheart.

Some of the landscape shots are wonderful, from Mont Saint-Michel in France to a field full of buffalo in the US, where Affleck ends up standing on his car bonnet. Nice work if you can get it.

The downside is that the film is a mixture of subtitles and narration and no member of the cast was given many lines to remember.

It’s hard to get to know any of the characters, still less to truly like or loathe them. The constant camera motion adds a stream-like fluidity which, in the end, becomes distractingly repetitive.

A colleague said he felt as if the film had ‘drained every ounce of energy’ out of him, which is probably not what Malick had intended. It’s worth noting that after The Tree Of Life, To The Wonder is now Malick’s second movie in 18 months – even though it’s still only his fifth since Badlands (1973).

Perhaps the 69-year-old is becoming prolific in his dotage since Knight of Cups, Untitled (both set to star Christian Bale) and Voyage of Time are all underway.

A bit more story, good dialogue and character empathy wouldn’t go amiss next time, Tezza. GY