Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Red Riding Hood

In Catherine Hardwicke’s first directing gig post Twilight she takes on the classic fairy tale Red Riding Hood with a supernatural twist. Warner Bros has pushed the project as a movie exactly like Twilight. That’s pretty much what it is. Amanda Seyfried plays the protagonist who gets mixed up in the mystery of the murderous werewolf who haunts the town. Then Gary Oldman’s character, a fanatical clergyman, is brought in to handle the situation. He only makes things worse by causing a finger-pointing hunt for the wolf. Then almost every scene brings about the death of a non-essential character.

It is not completely accurate to compare Red Riding Hood to Twilight. Both may be cheesy with poorly developed characters and an unrealistic love story, but one is based on a really old story and the other a new book. But in actuality what is different about Red Riding Hood is the theater like set that the entire movie takes place in. With the use of green screen all over the place in movies one would think an actual set would be refreshing. It’s not, at least not in this movie. And what is with the short sleeve costumes being worn in the apparent “snow”? I am getting picky here. Let’s go to some more fundamental flaws. Seyfried and Oldman both give static performances and no other actor can be credited with more than just reading their lines out loud. The whole thing is like a weird play.

The sci-fi twist on the basic story is interesting at times. The climax does bring about tension and drama. I would even claim there are some likeable characters. But the whole thing has a hard time steering clear of laughable. The film’s best attribute is that the running mystery has a decent resolution. But even if it turned out that Darth Vader was the werewolf, it couldn’t save this movie. (5.5 out of 10)

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