Hoodwinked film review

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HOODWINKED

School holidays can't go by these days without an avalanche of films aimed at the under-10 market, and Hoodwinked is the latest of the crop. Essentially a reworking of the Little Red Riding Hood, the film is the first effort of directors and brothers Cory and Todd Edwards, and while it's good enough to knock on the door of the big animation houses and be taken seriously, the likes of Pixar can rest easily for the foreseeable future.

Instead of opting for a simple retelling of the classic fairy tale, the Edwards brothers have gone for fresh, funny and modern feel. They've partly succeeded, so while Hoodwinked is better than say this year's Chicken Little or last year's Robots, it's certainly no Shrek.

The energetic feel of the film works well for the first half an hour as we are introduced to Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway) and the infamous events which culminate in her discovery that her grandmother has in fact been replaced by a hungry wolf. Much of this is amusing as we see the story from four different angles: Red, her granny, the big bad wolf and a rotund yodeling axeman. Throw in some inept detectives who can't solve the case and a gentleman detective who is actually a frog and you've got some good potential.

But as the scenes pass, the laughter dwindles and familiarity breeds unfortunate contempt as the central characters are forced into increasingly unlikely scenarios in the quest for a laugh. That's not to say there aren't some chuckles here and there, but overall the film simply becomes stretched by trying too hard.

Still, Red and her chums are just cute enough to keep under-8s interested for the slim 80 minutes running time, and as a debut effort it's superior to many. The trouble is that it might have been best suited to a shorter running time. Nevertheless, in the US, the Weinstein Brothers worked their usual magic in releasing the film and it went to the top of the charts, with a sequel already being worked on.

Paul Hurley