Review of Hoodwinked! (2005) by Rachel H — 23 Apr 2011

I recently heard that there is a sequel of this film coming up, and after seeing a few trailers of it, the film looks like it could go either way (despite the worsened quality of the animation). This film is, in my opinion, one of the most woefully underrated children's films of the last decade and one of my favourite movies from childhood. This is also one of the movies where I have no understanding of why the critics hate this movie. Admittedly, the quality of the animation isn't that spectacular. However, the film makes up for it with its witty screenplay and charming vocal performances.

Hoodwinked takes the classic, well-known story of Little Red Riding Hood and turns it into a crime procedural. The film starts at the end of the actual fairytale, with that whole "what big eyes you have" business. Then, the police are called to investigate the crime, and they think they have an open-and-shut case. That is, until Nicky Flippers comes in and lets Red (Anne Hathaway), Wolf (Patrick Warburton), Granny (Glenn Close) and the Woodsman (Jim Belushi) tell their sides of the story. The film then goes into their individual stories and they try to come to a conclusion. There's also the issue of the Goodie Bandit, who's been stealing recipes and threatened to do the same with Granny's goodie shop.

The story still follows the story of Red Riding Hood, and it doesn't really change anything. Well, I shouldn't really say that, it does change some things, but through addition, not subtraction. They change the details, like the Wolf being an undercover reporter and the Woodsman not being a woodsman at all, but an actor pretending to be a woodsman so he could be in a bunion cream commercial. Don't worry, that won't spoil the movie, it's no big secret. There's also the exreme-sports secret life of Granny and that leads to the "liar revealed" part of the movie, which is easily the weakest part.

For those of you who don't know, the liar revealed is a cliche pretty much used in all movies nowadays. It's in moovies where someone lies about whatever, it's revealed about 3/4 into the movie. The liar is shunned by the person or persons who the lie directly effects, until they realize they've been idiots and come together at the end. Well, it killed the movie for about 5 minutes until the ending, which was, for lack of a better word, awesome. The film has somewhat of a twist ending, and without giving it away, the first time I saw this film, I was actually quite surprised by it. The ending of the film is fantastic and I loved what they did with the story and the story structure. I loved that they turned it into a crime procedural, and I just loved this movie.

Without the witty dialogue, this movie could have been an average kids movie, but with the witty dialogue and some pop-culture based humour, it can entertain adults and kids and it retains its woefully underrated status from me. The script is great, but the animation is not that spectacular. It's certainly unique, and I kinda like that. I do wish that people would stop judging this film based on Pixar standards and just judge it as its own creation. There were some pop-culture jokes, but it's certainly no Shrek 2. I also wish that people would stop comparing this film with the Shrek films and judge it as its own creation.

Anne Hathaway is pretty much great in everything she's in (except *coughBRIDEWARScough*) and voice acting is no exception, delivering her signature charm to the character of Little Red. Patrick Warburton is one of the greatest voice actors of our generation, mostly due to his distinctive voice. He's great as always, and so are Glenn Close and Jim Belushi as Granny and the Woodsman. The only other voice actor in this movie that I can think of off the top of my head is David Ogden Stiers (AKA Cogsworth) as the voice of Nicky and he did quite wonderfully.

All in all, Hoodwinked will probably remain underrated, unless the sequel is either so good or so bad that more people pay attention to it. A very clever and inventive fairy tale family adventure, I would recommend Hoodwinked for a rental. It's not the greatest animated film ever made, but it's certainly not the worst, and it's not trying to be the best ever. So in short, this movie has subpar animation but a witty script and charming vocal performances, which is enough to like it in my book.