Hoodwinked Movie Review:


In “Hoodwinked,” four versions of a disturbance at the house belonging to Little Red Riding Hood’s Granny present the Inspector in charge with quite a challenge. Inspector? That’s right. A long-legged frog who looks like a cross between Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Claude Rains in "Casablanca" is on the case. And he listens very carefully as the Wolf, Granny, the Woodsman, and Red herself relate their stories. You see, "Hoodwinked" is not ordinary fairy tale. It's a clever animated film using the traditional children's favorite to poke fun at modern police dramas and mysteries. .

Everyone wants to find out the identity of the Goody Bandit, an evildoer responsible for closing down the forest establishments that sell cakes, cookies, pies, candy and so forth. Granny (voiced by Glenn Close) just happens to be one of the people in danger because of all the delicious goodies she prepares and sells. One day, as Red (voiced by Ann Hathaway) rides her bicycle through the forest to deliver Granny’s sweets, she meets a Wolf (voiced by Patrick Warburton) who seems all too interested in what she’s doing. When Red arrives at Granny’s, the Wolf pretends he’s Granny – but Red discovers the old woman tied up in the closet. At that point, a Woodsman (voiced by Jim Belushi) crashes through the window, which brings out the police (played by Three Little Pigs, of course) under Chief Grizzly’s (Xzibit) command. Because all four characters involved in the event are now under suspicion, they must give statements to the great Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers).

While most of the fun here involves finding out about Granny’s outrageous secret life and the Wolf’s true identity, I absolutely loved some of the other amusing characters. A silly mountain goat (voiced by Benji Gaither) who doesn’t talk -- but sings everything instead is a wonder! I still laugh whenever I think about him. The frog inspector and the cute little bunny also fascinated me. Although the movie’s stop-motion animation may not look as slick as in major studio productions like Shrek, it’s delightful just the same. I especially admired Red’s huge expressive eyes. And, as in most animated movies, “Hoodwinked” features a few songs that fit nicely into the story.

Witty one-liners abound in this creative movie written and directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech. I regret missing some of them because they sped by so quickly. But I’m glad I overheard one of Chief Grizzly’s cops whispering to his partner to let the creepy guy they arrested earlier go after hearing his boss announce that “being creepy” wasn’t a crime. Great “Simpson”-like stuff!

Who turns out to be the villainous Goody Bandit? Hey, I’m no snitch, so you won’t get that information out of me. I will divulge, however, that you’re in for a big surprise.



Betty Jo Tucker

Ok, you know that CGI-animation has taken over when the first indie-CGI animated film debuts. That’s right, an indie film that is in CGI. Makes sense, right? Didn’t think so.

“Hoodwinked” is the first computer-animated feature to be released theatrically without a studio backer. Since it’s an indie, you would probably expect it to be sassier, ruder, quick-witted and well revolutionary. Guess what, it’s none of those.

As I sat back and watched Hoodwinked, I found myself thinking just how far computer-animation has to go before it’s a fully established genre by sheer number of titles. In the beginning of CGI, we got spoiled by Pixar sort of like what happened with 2-D animation and the early films of Disney like classics “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty”.

Audiences are starting to see that just because its CGI doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. If they don’t know yet, 2006 should be the wake-up call as a record number of CGI films will be released this year and 95% of them look and feel like crap.

On paper, Hoodwinked is a great concept. The film opens with Little Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway) arriving at Granny’s house only to come face to face with the Wolf (Patrick Warburton). The film then splits off as an investigation into how Red Riding Hood, Granny, The Wolf and The Woodsman all ended up at Granny’s house that afternoon. There are cuts to police questioning the suspects and the whole thing unraveling as a “fairy tale CSI-style” if you will.

Like I said cool concept, right?

The problem is that the film runs out of material after the first two stories. Granny as an extreme daredevil and The Woodsman’s back story are all just dumb and really unfunny.

My favorite moments involved Andy Dick’s Boingo, the rhyming-musical mountain goat who is under a curse and Twitchy (Cory Edwards) the hyper-active squirrel who seems like he is on his 20th espresso. These concept characters are hysterical and their showcase scenes are priceless just too bad everything around them wasn’t the same.

The CGI movement dawned and we saw the brilliance. Now that it’s hear to stay, we will now see films that are brilliant (The Incredibles), mediocre (Madagascar), tedious (Hoodwinked) and awful (Valiant) as oodles of titles flood this new genre. Just because it’s CGI doesn’t mean it’s a must see.

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

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