Review of Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil (2011) by Robert H — 16 Nov 2012

Being a fan of the charming original Hoodwinked, low-budget though it was, I couldn't wait to see the sequel. However, the movie got scheduled, then postponed, then rescheduled, and then postponed once more, rinse and repeat. They show a Burger King ad with a toyline with a scene from the movie even though it did not come out. Finally in early 2011 it arrived, though I did not catch it in theatres, yet the resulting payoff is not a good one. I only saw it once when I rented the DVD, and after I watched it I was disappointed. Not only does it fail as a sequel, but it falters as a movie alone. The main improvement I felt was in the visuals, in that it was colorful and detailed, and the animation has been greatly improved since the previous film; unfortunately, that's where the positive ends. Glenn Close's Granny sounds older than she did in the first movie, some of the facial expressions look weird and bored, and the plot is bad. The movie starts in a similar fashion to the made for TV sequel The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue, where they showed clips from the predecessor with faded colors and told us what happened in the past and what's about to happen here. Bad sign, give THAT movie some credit, it's a classic by comparison. Hayden Panettiere replaces Anne Hathaway as Red, and she does look better, and it's weird to see her without her skirt; she even looks like the voice actress. But the Red in this movie is such a brat, she's such a jerk to Wolf who's just trying to help her get her grandmother back, and this time the hood stays on her head, even if she uses it to float in the sky. It's distracting, for certain. Hansel and Gretel look surprisingly cute, which is an accomplishment seeing as in the first movie the children looked scary as hell, so it at least improved on that end. Boingo makes an appearance, but he only plays the part of a cameo, with an awkwardly placed Silence of the Lambs reference (too forced). Several scenes are unnecessary, the fourth wall jokes feel premature here, and there is a moment when Twitchy (reprised by Cory Edwards) talks at a normal pace... why??? His fast-talking personality is what made him charming in the first place, and to hear him talk this way feels strongly out of character and totally unexpected. Japeth makes a reappearance, but that poor goat is unlucky this time; so much for being prepared. One of the enemies vaguely resembles Vector's father from Despicable Me (plagiarism?), Red's theme sounds like something lifted from Super Mario Galaxy, there's an out of place Star Wars reference, and the ending is a true slap in the face. Did we really wait five years just to see that?! Damn, what a reward! Whilst the first movie was appealing to me for various reasons, Hood vs. Evil fails to match it in terms of quality and entertainment value. This was strict kiddie fare, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know what happened during this movie's development hell, but I don't like the end result. Bad sequel to Hoodwinked.