Movie Review: Hoodwinked
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What Parents Should Know
Parents should know this is a jerry-rigged version of
"Little Red Riding Hood," with jokes (verbal and visual) aimed
at kids and adults, though not at the same time. The plot
involves theft, cartoonish violence (including the use of
explosions, axes, guns, and vehicles), and an extreme
snowboarding semi-finale.
Families can talk about Red's relationships with her friends and grandmother. How is it that everyone has secrets hidden from their closest friends? How does the crime bring together a community in search of a common goal?
Common Sense Media Review
The central gimmick of HOODWINKED is a
Rashomon-ish mystery wherein police investigate a
break-in at Grandma's house by the Goody Bandit. Granny (Glenn
Close) is worried that her secret goody recipe book is missing,
one of a series of similar thefts that threaten the forest's
primary economy. The culprit must be found, but how, when all
involved in the latest crime have different stories to
tell?
As the principals all bring different pieces to the puzzle, they are questioned by the intuitive detective frog Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), aided by Detective Bill Stork (Anthony Anderson) and Chief Grizzly (Xzibit). Each story ends in the bedroom: Red (Anne Hathaway), pausing during her deliveries of baked goods for Granny, discovers Wolf (Patrick Warburton) in the old lady's bed and Granny herself tied up in the closet; Wolf reveals that he's an investigative reporter (he worked on the "Stiltskin" case), now hunting the recipe thief; and the Woodsman (Jim Belushi) is actually an actor, out chopping trees that day in an effort to "find his woodcutting self" for a part in a commercial, before he loses his balance and falls down a hill to crash through Granny's window.
These stories sort of intersect at repeating points of action (such as a careening mining car or the Woodsman crashing), but the film lacks coherence and tact: all the gags slam against one another, like a set of sketches more than any sort of plot. This narrative sloppiness is hardly helped by the unimpressive animation, which makes the characters seem bloated and blocky, rather than engaging. The storytelling grows increasingly tedious (especially when punctuated by Andy Dick's twitchy bunny, Boingo), leading at last to a denouement full of extreme sports tricks and thuggy villains, all more frantic than amusing.
The target audience also seems conceptually mushy: most of the verbal gags aim at adults, the slapsticky violence might please kids, but these tracks remain divergent. Plus, with all its energy directed toward the hyper-actionation, the movie loses the fairy tale's creepy focus, namely, the little girl's engagement with the fuzzy beast pretending to be her grandma. Here, Red's martial arts skills rather undermine the threat, and place big bad Wolf -- and everyone else for that matter -- at a disadvantage. Bland rather than lively, the film eventually peters out.
Families who like this movie might also like Shrek (also featuring woodsy creatures), Princess Mononoke (about a spunky girl hero), or the Bugs Bunny send-up of Red Riding Hood.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
