Review: Red Riding Hood
The latest Hollywood trend appears to be retelling classic fairy tales, most recently Beastly and now Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately the tale of a young girl and the false grandmother has suffered the same fate of that of "Beauty and the Beast" -- read Jenn's review of Beastly here -- on so many levels. I have no issues with modernization or re-imaging of classic stories, and look forward to Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Snow White and the Huntsman both set for release in 2012. However, Red Riding Hood makes no attempt to substantiate the classic antithesis of the safety of the village versus the dangers of the forest, instead focusing on the danger amongst friends and families. With director Catherine Hardwicke of Twilight fame at the helm, the film is more intent on pulling in Twilighters that are jonesing for the next in the series, leaving more discerning audiences disappointed.
Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), falls for an orphaned woodcutter, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), much to her family's displeasure -- they have plans for her to marry wealthy blacksmith Henry (Max Irons). The star-crossed lovers have plans to run away together, but their plans are quickly abandoned when Valerie's is found dead from a werewolf attack. Father Auguste (Lukas Haas) calls on the expertise of wolf hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) to save the village from the brutal animal, but Solomon turns out to have his own brutal methods. He has no qualms at offering Valerie to appease the beast.
I was dumbfounded by the casting of Red Riding Hood, with enough familiar faces from SyFy Channel series that I was waiting for Kevin Sorbo to turn up to save the day. However, the presence of Billy Burke once again as the drunken father of a teenage girl who has two handsome suitors quickly reminded me of the lucrative Twilight audience that will welcome his familiar face. The formidable female cast includes the lovely and talented Virginia Madsen as Valerie's mother Suzette. Julie Christie was perfect as the reclusive grandmother despite ridiculous dialogue. Even more appalling is the under-utilization of Christine Willes, a wickedly talented actress whom I adored in the dark comedy series of Dead Like Me and Reaper.
The production value of this film was decent, although more reminiscent of a modern Renaissance faire more than a medieval village. For a locale constantly covered in snow, the villagers were so well-acclimated that the males wore short shirts -- all the better to see their bulging muscles. Action scenes relied mostly on up-close and fast cuts, without much effort on fight choreography or extensive editing. Although the movie comes across as gothic horror, very little blood or carnage occurs onscreen.
Red Riding Hood throws more red herrings at the audience than the famous fishmongers at Pike's Place Fish Market. Instead of caring "Whodunnit?", my thoughts turned to just getting on with the exposition. I was mildly surprised with the results, but by the climax was so disengaged by the plot and dialogue -- and the uncontrollable laughter of the screening audience -- I couldn't care anymore. Several members of the audience seemed to feel the same, leaving after what they may have thought was the ending, of which there were two "false" endings. In my opinion, they didn't miss much and would probably be happier not wasting the extra time for the gratuitous chaste coupling in landscape, sans sparkly lover.