Hoodwinked! Review
Posted by Jacob Ziegler on 01.13.2006
Little Red Riding Hood takes a spin...
HOODWINKED
December 16, 2005 (limited) January 13, 2006 (Wide)
Granny: Glenn Close
Red Riding Hood: Anne Hathaway
The Woodsman: James Belushi
The Wolf: Patrick Warburton
Detective Bill Stork: Anthony Anderson
Nicky Flippers: David Ogden Stiers
Chief Grizzly: Xzibit
Woolworth the Sheep: Chazz Palminteri
Boingo: Andy Dick
The Weinstein Company LLC presents a film written and directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech. The running time is 80 minutes. It is rated PG for some mild action and thematic elements.
BY JACOB ZIEGLER
In 2001, a movie called "Shrek" delighted audiences by being a delicious send up of a number of different fairy tales. The success of that film must have led to the development of "Hoodwinked," which focuses on just one tale, that of Little Red Riding Hood.
The Edwards Brothers (Cory and Todd) along with Tony Leech put a new spin on the classic story, telling it in no less than five different ways. They show it as it really happened (eventually), as well as from the point of view of Granny (voiced by Glenn Close), Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway), The Woodsman (James Belushi), and The Wolf (Patrick Warburton, whose character David Putty on "Seinfeld" is my favorite on the show).
The film moves along at a lively, sprightly pace and never gets boring. At only 80 minutes, "Hoodwinked" is a rare recent film that I don't have to complain about it being too long. The characters are all brought together at an investigation type scene, which is being handled by Nicky Flippers (a very tall frog, voiced by David Ogden Stiers). A few members of the forest police are also trying to assert their authority, most notably Chief Grizzly (Xzibit) and Detective Bill Stork (Anthony Anderson).
At the investigation, Flippers tries to get to the bottom of the case by asking each of the individuals what happened, separate from each other of course. The versions of the story are all different, but all are about equally as entertaining. That's what carries "Hoodwinked" through, the fact that each of the main characters is as fun to watch as the other. A few of them even perform musical numbers (Hathaway and Belushi), and a song by Ben Folds, the cheeky "Red is Blue" keeps the movie chugging along.
The supporting cast is also amusing. They include a nosy rabbit named Boingo (Andy Dick), a sheep informant (Chazz Palminteri), a goat named Japeth (Benjy Gaither) whose curse is that he can never stop singing, and an ultra-hyper squirrel named Twitchy (voiced by the director himself).
The animation is a different style than we have gotten used to seeing lately. Kanbar Animation worked with Edwards on this film, and used a stop-motion style that viewers will find familiar from old Rankin-Bass TV specials. It's a little shinier and spiffier than those shows, but that is the basic idea. It's a style perfectly suited to this story, and to be honest, I'm getting sick of the same old CG style, just because its been so overexposed.
"Hoodwinked" probably won't enter the canon of great animated films, but it's much better than some of the more publicized movies like "Shark Tale" and "Madagascar," just to name a few. Adults and children both are likely to enjoy it though, for different reasons. It's not necessarily adult humor per se, but it's frequently clever enough to go over the heads of some younger members of the audience. It may not be a classic, but it's easily worth a recommendation.
The 411: Glenn Close, Anne Hathaway, James Belushi and Patrick Warburton lead a talented cast of vocalists through “Hoodwinked,” a delightful and frequently hilarious re-telling of the famous “Little Red Riding Hood” story. It should entertain both children and adults without insulting either age group’s intelligence.
