Red Riding Hood
Oh, this movie. I've always loved the Red Riding Hood mythos. I like the straight-up, no frills classic children's story version, and I enjoy the updated and contemporary-twist retellings. I seriously dig the original Brothers Grimm tale that fits more in line with horror than happy endings, and I love the hell out of Hoodwinked. So despite the naysaying that surrounded this movie, I had this tiny sliver of hope that the newest remake would be worth watching.
And lo, did disappointment rain down from the heavens upon the pressing of the play button.
I realized this was going to be a less than stellar movie about five minutes in, when the young male proto-lead leaped up out of the ditch with his perfectly coiffed, shampooed hair and spiffy leather tunic and startled the pretty girl who would grow up to be our story's heroine, and the pair ran off into the supposedly foreboding, Thomas Kinkaide-style forest in search of childhood mischief. The children are shown trapping a rabbit, and presumably bonding over their shared inability to kill and skin the little bundle of fluff. (Spoiler: the rabbit doesn't make it.) Almost immediately afterward, the scene skips forward to show the young lovers, now suitably aged just past the cuff of legally naughty, embroiled in the sort of romantic angst that would make even the most emo, pseudo-goth teenager embarrassed. No build-up, no emotional investment, no reason to care about either character. 'Here they are, hot and in love yet kept apart by cruel and uncaring parents, YOU WILL FEEL BAD FOR THEM!!!'
The rest of the film showed precious little improvement on this score. The plot (a werewolf terrorizes a quaint, painfully picturesque village after breaking a truce maintained with the townspeople for generations) alternated between snail's-pace and break-neck, but in all the wrong places, and most of the actors could have been replaced with 8x10s taped onto sticks and phoned in their lines without any noticeable difference. Shiloh Fernandez, the actor who played Amanda Seyfried's love interest, must have been tragically afflicted with some horrible disease in his childhood, because he can't seem to alter his facial expression. Also, despite the fact that the two have completely different hairstyles, I had a bit of trouble telling the difference between him and Max Irons' character, the wealthy blacksmith's son and rival heartthrob. Cookie-cutter pretty boys, fresh off the press!
That's not to say the movie lacks strong acting, but it's a lot rarer than it needs to be. Gary Oldman delivers a decent enough performance as the werewolf-hunting zealot priest, although far from what we would expect from the man who brings Batman's Commissioner Gordon to life, and Amanda Seyfried displays surprising talent behind those alluring blue eyes of hers. But in a cast composed mostly of up-and-comers and Syfy Channel stars (Stargate SG1's Michael Shanks and Battlestar Galacta's Michael Hogan both have bit parts as the blacksmith and town elder, respectively), that's not exactly vaulting the bar for excellence. More like shuffling up to the bar and ordering an iced coffee.
The main problem this movie has, far worse than its acting, is the writing. The story concept is great, and had it been handled better would have been thrilling to watch. A vicious, shapeshifting monster, hiding among its prey and stalking those who would dare to challenge its dreadful power? Sounds fantastic! But the writers for this film seemed unable to grasp the right way to heighten the suspense, to demonstrate the fear the villagers felt when the sunlight fell away and the deathly moon rose red with blood. Perhaps the worst element was the way the werewolf's identity was handled. To whoever wrote the script, here's a hint: if you have multiple suspects and want the audience to invest a little something in figuring out who did it without feeling cheated at the end, actually make one of the damn suspects the culprit! Do not spin around ten minutes before the end and go 'Oh yeah, and by the way it was THIS GUY, who got almost NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, all along! What, you didn't see the clues we left for you? Here, we'll replay them in a quick flashback OH NO WAIT WE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SHOW ANY OF THOSE CLUES IN THE FIRST PLACE DID WE TOO BAD SUCKERS!'.
If this movie has anything resembling a saving grace, it has to be the scenery. The art, the camera angles, the use of color and the set designs are freaking gorgeous. Snow-capped mountainsides and crisp, icy rivers looked brisk and fresh without making me want to turn up my thermostat, the insides of buildings felt dark and rustic and ruggedly homey, and the village seemed positively alive (at several points, moreso than the actors filling it). Many times during this film I had a strong suspicion that whoever designed the sets took more inspiration from the starting town of almost any video game RPG ever published than from anything in a history book, but it looked pretty cool so I was willing to let it slide. The music isn't teeth-gnashingly bad, either; most of it was rather forgettable, but there were a few likable pieces scattered about the film's score. Also, a note about the costumes: Everyone has a cape or a cloak. And as we all know, cloaks and capes are cool. Seriously. It's on the internet -- look it up.
In all, this is just a bad movie. I don't really like to grade films like this, because I feel a little out of place passing judgement on something I had no hand in making. But if I WERE the kind of guy who did stuff like that, I'd give Red Riding Hood...two out of five stars. If you sit down to watch this film and expect to get your money's worth, you're probably in for a lousy night. But if you just accept that you're going to be watching a bad movie, it gets *a bit* easier to bear. That, and Amanda Seyfried and her would-be boyfriends are just smokin' hot. That helps a lot.
And it's still better than Twilight.
Spoilers:
Not once in the course of this film is Seyfried's character, Valerie, ever referred to as 'red riding hood', or any derivative thereof.
However, the iconic 'Grandmother, what big *blank* you have' dialogue makes an appearance during a (rather dull) dream sequence.
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