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Twist on classic fairy tale sometimes amuses; plot could be dark, more adult

January 17, 2006

"Hoodwinked" is a new version of the Little Red Riding Hood story that tells what really happened at Granny's house, and in case you didn't know, Granny is a baked goodies tycoon. A "domestic disturbance" surrounds the Goody Bandit, who is stealing all the recipes and putting people out of business. The police are convinced they have the bandit cornered and are determined to close the case.

The movie follows the format of Akira Kurosawa's frequently copied "Rashomon," in which a story is told from four differing points of view. In "Hoodwinked," Red, Granny, The Woodsman and The Wolf all give alternate tales painting themselves innocent. Midway through the movie it becomes obvious who the real culprit is, but I won't spoil that for you.

The animation in "Hoodwinked" is not compared to that of "The Incredibles" or "Shrek," but it's original, with a lot of the scenes shown in black-and-blue hues. The movie uses the fairy tale book analogy well, showing a book opening to reveal a 3-D map of the forest, pinpointing the start of each character's tale. A lot of the scenes in the movie seem to be repeated, but that is the nature of the way it is set up.

The movie makes up for the lacking visual stimulation with the content. "Hoodwinked" manages to use the fairy tale theme throughout the movie without overdoing it. The characters are all pulled from different classic tales. The Three Little Pigs are on the police squad, and Little Bo Peep is the rough leader of the sheep mob. The fairly tale jokes work well; the jokes centered around popular culture fall flat.

Granny is really "Triple G." She does extreme sports and has a tattoo. Her friends are gangsters, and there is a whole sequence of groan-inducing Snoop Dogg speak — fo shizzle my Granny dizzle. I'll pass. Another unnecessary toast to popular culture was the recreation of the "Matrix"-style fight scene. It turns out Red knows karate, and uses her moves in slow motion just like in "The Matrix."

The plot starts off seemingly well. The characters you grew up with are being questioned and turn out to be different than the classic prototype. It's an involved mystery, dealing with crime and business. It almost seems like the movie is making some social commentary on megacorporations destroying all the competition in their greedy quest for money and power. But then some character makes a really bad joke completely off topic and Red breaks into song. Suddenly the artistic dark animation is gone and the screen is filled with bright birds and flowers just like every other kids' movie.

The actors do a good job with the voice work. Anne Hathaway sounds exactly how I would have imagined Little Red Riding Hood would sound. Jim Belushi does the voice of The Woodsman, and manages to get the accent and moronic persona right. He makes the manufactured voice sound natural. Patrick Warburton does The Wolf's raspy voice, perfecting the only character in the movie who never stops being funny. The Wolf claims to be an investigative reporter, and provides the movie with some of its best jokes.

Parts of the movie created opportunities for humor or plot development, but in the end it fell short. I think these missed chances are a result of the director trying to keep the rating down to make this a family movie. "Hoodwinked" could have been a genius adaptation of the fairy tale if it had been a little darker and more mysterious. Or on the other hand, it could have been a hilarious parody of fairy tales if it had allowed itself to be slightly raunchier. It falls somewhere in between the two, as a mediocre family movie. It's cute, but somewhat corny. It's mysterious, but only for about 20 minutes, and then all is revealed to the viewer.

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