Based loosely on the story of Hansel and Gretel, the story is set in a fantasy kingdom where all magic is heavily regulated by the titular Secret Magic Control Agency. When the king is abducted by magically animated food, Agent Gretel is assigned to track him down with the help of her disowned con artist brother Hansel. To keep the kingdom from panicking, the Prime Minister keeps the abduction confidential and expects the siblings to complete their mission before the king's birthday celebration in two days.
Tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: When Hansel and Gretel are magically de-aged, their attempts at going to HQ to turn in evidence they found at the bakery are made fruitless when, despite knowing all of the proper channels and passwords for entry, they are denied access because they're children.
- Anti-Hero: Hansel is the con artist who uses illusion to scam other people. However, during the rescue mission with his sister Gretel, he proves to be a fundamentally decent person underneath.
- Big Good: Agent Stepmother occupies this role, as the head of the Secret Magic Control Agency.
- Child Eater: Hansel argues that it would be dangerous for him and Gretel to go to Baba Yaga since they've been transformed into children, but Gretel insists that there's nothing to indicate the rumors that she eats children are actually true. Hansel turns out to be right; Baba Yaga feeds them cookies laced with a sleeping potion and traps them in her house so she can eat them.
- Cold Flames: In the pastry shop that Gretel and Hansel investigate, Hansel begins to feel chilly and sits in front of the fire to warm up. He quickly realizes that the fire isn't producing any heat, and is the same as the cold fire he uses for his stage magic.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front:
- The SMCA's Elaborate Underground Base is accessed through a hair salon. To get to the actual base, agents sit in front of a mirror and ask for a style that will "open their inner world", which is the cue for the stylist to activate a spell allowing a security guard to see through the mirror. If he recognizes the agent, he allows them to enter via an elevator.
- Ilvira's potion warehouse is disguised as a pastry shop. The entrance to the warehouse itself is through the shop's large fireplace, which uses cold fire so it can be walked through harmlessly.
- Decomposite Character: This being a Hansel and Gretel adaptation, there are two witches that fit the bill as the fairy tale's evil witch; the Big Bad Ilvira, a witch that specializes in cooking magical pastries for malicious purposes, and Granny Baba Yaga, who tries to cook and eat Hansel and Gretel when they go to her for information on the magic vanilla.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The SMCA's headquarters are located in a massive cavern beneath a hair salon. Bridges connect different areas and there are hot air balloons seen inside.
- Failure Montage: After their initial attempt to access the SMCA base through the hair salon due to being transformed into children, there's a montage of Hansel and Gretel trying various other methods of sneaking inside... and each time, they get kicked out.
- Fake Wizardry: While magic is real and heavily regulated, Hansel's brand of magic is just smoke and mirrors, using misdirection and Stage Magician tactics to make everyone think he's a powerful wizard. It's implied that this is why, in spite of his criminal record, the SMCA doesn't try to arrest him until they need his help finding the king.
- Female Flatfoot and Snarky Guy: Gretel is following in her parents' footsteps working for the SMCA, with a great track record of completing missions and on her way to earning the title of Best Agent just like they did. Hansel, on the other hand, is a con artist who sells fake magic to gullible people and is forcefully recruited to work with his sister on this particular mission, since the agency believes his abilities would be useful for tracking down the king.
- Flying Broomstick: Baba Yaga's broomstick is used to steer her flying mortar. Unfortunately, Hansel misunderstands Gretel's instruction to get the broomstick for their escape in the mortar - he breaks it, thinking that he's stopping Baba Yaga from chasing them by flying on the broom herself.
- Forced Sleep: Baba Yaga feeds Hansel and Gretel cookies laced with a sleep potion so that she can eat them.
- Forced Transformation:
- At Ilvira's potion warehouse, several of the potions that get tossed about transform Gretel, Hansel, and Cookie into things like a teapot, an armchair, a mermaid and a crab.
- The Lake Witch turns trespassers into small fish which bite the skin off of her and her fellow mermaids' feet when they are in their human form. One of the fish is seen begging for help. Hansel is temporarily turned into one before the Lake Witch's daughter realizes that Gretel is the agent who rescued her at the beginning of the movie.
- Fountain of Youth: Among the potions at Ilvira's warehouse is one called Fungus Shrinkillus. Hansel, Gretel, and the cookie dog all get splashed with it, turning them into children and a puppy. This creates a large hurdle in completing their mission since they can't get any help from the rest of the SMCA due to just being mistaken for random kids.
- Love Potion: Ilvira force-feeds the king cookies laced with a potion so that he falls in love with her and makes her his queen.
- Moving Buildings: Baba Yaga's hut, of course, has a pair of chicken legs on which it can walk around. When Gretel sets it afire during their escape, the hut begins to panic and run about the swamp wildly, before tossing itself upside down into the water.
- Object Shifting: During the "potion explosion", Hansel and Gretel are briefly transformed into an armchair and a teapot respectively.
- Pet the Dog: Hansel's Establishing Character Moment shows him selling fake charms to his audience. When a woman asks him to help cure her baby sister's illness (being too poor to go to a doctor), he gives her part of his earnings so that she can afford medical help.
- Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Inverted with the main characters. Hansel sports a magenta suit, while Gretel wears a sky blue uniform. This carries over when they get turned into children, with Gretel wearing a dress in the same blue colour, and Hansel donning a magenta jacket.
- Protective Charm: Hansel puts on a show of curing a bunny of a curse which transformed it into a jackalope, through the use of magical amulets. He claims these amulets can protect the wearer against any curse, and his audience quickly buys them all. Unfortunately for them, it's all a trick, and the amulets have no real magic.
- Repulsive Ringmaster: At the beginning of the film, Gretel tracks down a circus and accuses the ringmaster of running a smuggling operation and kidnapping the king. It turns out she's wrong about them having the king - but the ringmaster does turn out to keep magical creatures, including a mermaid, in cages, claiming them to be happy when they're clearly miserable there and escape as soon as the cages are opened.
- She Is the King: Ilvira proclaims herself the king before she corrects herself and goes by the queen
- Snake Oil Salesman: Hansel is seen selling fake protective charms to the audience at his magic show. He claims that they protect against curses, but his demonstration of the use of the amulets was all just stage magic.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The SMCA deems Hansel and Gretel to be the most suitable people to track down the king, and instructs them to work together. The siblings immediately state that they can't stand each other; they haven't spoken in years, and Gretel resents Hansel for becoming a con man instead of sticking to the honesty that their parents wanted to instill in them.
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: In reference to the original Hansel and Gretel tale, one of the magical gadgets that the SMCA gives the siblings is a set of small stones that can be dropped while traveling, and later activated so they shine a beacon of light into the sky allowing the user to retrace their steps. Hansel is seen dropping the stones at various points during the film.
