PLOT: Red, Granny, the Big Bad Wolf and the Woodsman all give their different (and funny) versions of the Red Riding Hood story. This is a bit too frantic for us, but kids will probably like it.
Hoodwinked is a hip, new animated version of the Little Red Riding Hood story, the better to amuse you with, my dear.
What really happened on that dark and stormy night when the wolf impersonated grandma and tried to gobble up Little Red Riding Hood?
Depends upon who is telling the story ...
Told like Rashomon for kiddies, Hoodwinked offers a tale told in busy flashback by the four main players: Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway), granny (Glenn Close), the wolf (Patrick Warburton) and the pathetic woodsman (Jim Belushi).
The computer animated populace includes an investigative frog (David Ogden Stiers), a police chief bear (XZIBIT) and other characters voiced by Andy Dick, Anthony Anderson, Chazz Palminteri and filmmaker Cory Edwards.
In this retelling of the classic fairy tale, Red is a teen who dreams of world travel and who works as a delivery person (of baked goodies) in the forest. She and all the other computer-generated folk in the story are worried about the goody bandit, a mysterious thief whose work at stealing recipes is causing small shops in the woods to close down.
Granny is not some weak old woman but a champion snowboarder. The big bad wolf is actually a reporter. The brave Woodsman is a doltish actor hoping to find work.
The characters tell their stories in flashback with lots of action and adventure and plenty of song.
(Co-director/co-writer Todd Edwards supplies a handful of demented musical outings for the film, including a yodelling number and a critter rock song, that are inspired in their silliness.)
Hoodwinked is snappy and colourful and a little too frantic for this viewer; the film zips all over the place with video game speed until the weight of its own narrative brings it down. There are avalanches and extreme sport stunts and skydiving and singing woodchucks and bad bunnies and after a while there seems to be something forced and false and vaguely desperate about it all. Under the bluster and carry-on, nothing substantial appears to be happening.
Chances are your children won't notice.
BOTTOM LINE: Hoodwinked is not the greatest animated kids movie ever made, but it's an auspicious debut for director Cory Edwards and 90 minutes worth of amusement for children.
(This film is rated G)
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