Hoodwinked - The Review

I never watched Hoodwinked when it was released in theaters. Frankly the film just did not appeal to me. The character models weren't attractive visually, the animation looked rough, and after watching the trailer for the film, it just seemed like a rush job.

So last night it arrived in my mailbox (Netflix) and I sat down and watched it.

If you head over to the official Hoodwinked site you can read how the filmmakers made this "independent film" in the Philippines, with a team of "top notch animators." Now while I applaud the concept of an independent film and anyone who makes one, I don't think that's what Hoodwinked really is. Hoodwinked, to me, feels more like a group of investors who saw how hot the 3D Animated Film market was and set out to make the cheapest one that they could. I can almost hear the board room meetings...

"We'll hire outside of the States and get a bunch of artists to work for peanuts. 3D animated movies are HUGE right now... we might as well be printing our own money!"

Now Hoodwinked could have been much worse, and overall is a film that I'm sure the average kid would probably enjoy somewhat, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near the quality of the other 3D Films currently on the market.

PLOT
Hoodwinked revolves around the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Think of it as kind of a narrowly-focused Shrek, in which the story of Red is twisted around and modernized. Granny (Glen Close) is a snowboarder, the Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is a reporter, and Red (Anne Hathaway) is a wise-cracking, sarcastic Red.

The film begins in very much a storybook way, with Red on the way to Granny's house. Once there she encounters the wolf in Granny's bed, Granny springs from the closet all tied up, and a woodsman (Jim Belushi) jumps through a window screaming and swinging an axe.

From there, the police are called in, and a detective frog begins to unravel the mystery of why they were all in Granny's house, and who has been stealing the recipes from the local food shops in the area.

It's a decent plot, and I actually liked how the film worked to re-tell the events from the perspective of each character. That being said, I felt like many of the gags fell very flat, mostly due to timing, and the way in which some of them were animated, but we'll get to the animation later. Additionally, this felt very much like a side story to Shrek, since "turning the Fairy Tale on its ear" thing has already been done, and done much better.

Plot Grade: C+



Characters/Cast

As mentioned above, with the likes of Glenn Close, Anne Hathaway, and Patrick Warburton, the voice talent was actually much better than I expected going into the film.

I especially liked Andy Dick in the roll of Boingo the Bunny. I really enjoyed his work back in the day on "Newsradio," and it was good to hear his voice again. While I don't want to give anything away, I think his character had some of the best scenes in the movie, especially towards the very end.

Another great character in the film was Twitchy, who was a speed-talking little squirrel who was the obvious slapstick comic relief of the film. I actually did have a hard time understanding him at times though, due to the speed at which he spoke.

Overall, no complaints at all about the acting, but I thought some of the characters were a bit weak.

Characters/Cast Grade: B+



Art/Animation

This is one of the areas where I really struggled with the film. The character models seemed to be all over the place in terms of quality, and the animation was REALLY stiff in most areas. I never could quite figure out if they were going for a look similar to the old "Rudolph" and "Frosty" stop action TV Movies, or if it was simply a matter of poor animation. Some models were good, like Boingo and the detective, but others were just ugly, like Granny. The Wolf even had a strange animation when he spoke where his cheeks would puff out at seemingly random times, and this turned out to be quite distracting.

The animation, as mentioned, was very stiff. Scenes like Red running through the forest were obviously shot from the waist up for a reason. Japeth the Goat was another exception, as again I thought his model and animations were pretty good, but for the most part, the models and animation were not up to the levels I would expect in a full-length film.

To top it all off, I thought Red was pretty ugly. I just didn't care for her model at all, and never saw here as a little girl. Instead she almost looked like a child's doll of some sort, and overall felt very plastic.

Art/Animation Grade: D



Audio/Music

I guess you'd call Hoodwinked a musical, as characters do break into song here and there, but thankfully it's kept to a minimum. Overall the songs weren't terrible, and in fact I kind of liked Japeth's songs.

What did bother me a great deal is that, at least on the DVD, the volume levels were all over the place. I had to keep my thumb constantly on my remote's volume button as half the time I couldn't hear the characters and then suddenly a song would come blasting through the speakers and rattle my windows. I don't know if this was an issue with the DVD or if this is how it was in the theaters too, but it made the film tough to watch at times.

Audio/Music Grade: C+



Overall

As stated, Hoodwinked is not a terrible movie, but that doesn't mean it's a good movie either. In fact, it's slightly above average on it's own, and far below the bar when compared to other animated films currently on the market. Whether it's the case or not, Hoodwinked feels like a film that was made purely to cash in on the hot trend in filmmaking, by keeping the bottom line as low as possible.

I guess when it comes down to it, Hoodwinked is like the Wolf dressed as Granny: On the surface it sort of looks like the other animated films you know and love, but it doesn't take long before you start noticing what big eyes it has, and then you only see the ugly side from there on out.

Overall Grade: C-