RED RIDING HOOD (2011)
Plot: A village is harassed by a werewolf who seems to 'want' a girl with a red hood. Soon she is caught in between a war between the werewolf and a fanatical werewolf hunter.......Oh wait, no, that's the more interesting plot. The real plot is a chick with no personality finds herself in a love triangle between two guys with no personalities while a werewolf occasionally shows up.
Review:
The idea of “Little Red Riding Hood” as a horror film is about as appealing as it is absurd. I can almost see it working, but I'd say it would work better as a minor inspiration than as a full blown movie. I liked “Deep in the Woods”, which draws from the tale, for example. But that film had a weak story as it was and that wasn't even a real adaptation. Still, the concept is enough to intrigue me, but expectations collapsed when I read “From the director of “Twilight”” either in its description or in its trailer. It's no secret that I can't stand the franchise, and I figured “Red Riding Hood” would just be that except with werewolves instead of pasty vampires. I did find some amusement with the marketing campaign though, as some trailers made it look like a love story between a girl and a werewolf (lies), while others made it look like an action/horror film(lies). It's never a good sign when the people who own the rights to the movie aren't sure what it is. So like any heterosexual, sane male who doesn't get paid for reviewing films, I avoided the film when it hit theaters and laughed when the consensus was that it was WORSE than the “Twilight” films. Now that I've seen it, is it really worse than a film that includes the line “chillax”? Read on.
The film takes place in some village back in “Little Red Riding Hood” times (it's ambiguous), where werewolves and (apparently) other dark creatures are common. Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is a boring but super popular girl who likes to prowl around the forest and kill bunnies, all while making eyes with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). Unfortunately, her Mother (Virginia Madsen) wants her to marry Henry (Max Irons). So begins our boring love triangle, but things become complex when a werewolf kills Valerie's sister and continuously attacks their village. As Valerie and Peter do...stuff...A werewolf Hunter named Solomon (Gary Oldman) arrives to rid the village of their werewolf. Unfortunately, Solomon's ways turn out to be rather sadistic and the lovers must escape him and the wolf... But mostly they just force us to endure their banal love triangle.
What pisses me off the most about “Red Riding Hood” is that it has elements I really like. Some have complained that the village looks too much like a movie set, but I thought it worked. It looked intentionally artificial to amplify the films mythical aspects. The film does manage to exploit its fantasy elements and combine them with its horror elements surprisingly well. The CGI, while rarely looking real, gives a surreal edge to the film. The movie is awash with vibrant colors, but they have a slightly menacing look about them. Much to my surprise, director Hardwicke handles the action and suspense like a pro. The action scenes look slick and when the werewolf attacks, I was totally into things. Speaking of which, while blatantly CGI, the werewolf was pretty cool. Its color (black) helps cover up the special effects shortcomings and the voice gave the wolf a distinct personality. Tt's not as good as one found in “The Wolfman (2010)” in terms of effects. But I'd take it over the shit found in “New Moon”, which is downright laughable. This all should be enough for me to at least deem the movie passable, if not decent. So what went wrong?
It's directed by the chick who did “Twilight”. That's what's fucking wrong.
Apparently Hardwicke thinks that fleshing out a love story is having an attractive guy look at an attractive girl and vice versa. The love story here is FAR worse than the one between Edward and Bella. At least that movie has the ups and downs of their attraction. Here, Peter acts too much like a hostile jerk throughout the whole movie (then again, Edward wasn't much better). Now granted, I'd be like that in his situation too, but we never see him on a good day so the entire movie just has him pissy at just about everyone. We're supposed to WANT to see him get the girl, but I found myself rooting for Henry. In contrast to most forced fiances in film, Henry is actually a decent human being with a * gasp* character arc. Peter, on the other hand, is a static character with no redeeming values other than looking soooo hunky. Also, like “Twilight”, we must endure dialogue that ranges from gag inducing to just downright flat (they even use the “if you love her, let her go” line). Honestly, it's movies like this that strike me as truly misogynistic, not slashers. Women are portrayed as clingy, unstable and spoiled who like to toy with peoples feelings and are shallow in their tastes of men. I suspect that if a guy was the one who did this, feminists would be furious even if every word and action was the same. But because Hardwicke is a woman, feminists can't get angry at her. But do you know why this love story is such a failure? It's because too much is going on.
“Twilight” was ultimately about Bella and Edward, but “Red Riding Hood” wants to balance the love story with every minor subplot to such an extent that the end result is nothing feels fleshed out. Even worse, with some twists and subplots, this movie REQUIRED fleshing out. The love story collapsed under the weight of everything else because too much time was given to everything else but not enough for any of it to matter. I never understood why the Mother wants to marry the girl off to Henry. The movie spends a little time developing the Mother so that we can understand some of her actions, but it makes her decision there nonsensical and instead of sympathizing with her, we end up hating her. The film states that Henry always loved Valerie, but she states she barely knows him which makes no sense for two reasons. For one, you'd think in a village this small, they would know each other somewhat (especially considering his feelings). Two, why are we supposed to take his feelings seriously if they barely know each other? His feelings HAVE TO BE SUPERFICIAL if this is the case! What about the relationship between Valerie and her Grandma (Julie Christie)? Harmless, but typical and the Grandma comes across as superfluous despite her importance in the source material. Amusingly, the films most underdeveloped relationship is the one that should've been explored the most, as “the twist” loses all impact because of it. I'm not going to say which, because it would be a major spoiler, but it just goes to show that this movie sucks. The film scatters all sorts of other relationships in there as well. One is between a girl and her retarded brother, whose far too annoying to care about. Valerie has a friend who cruelly turns on her and says that she deserves what she gets, but then becomes her friend again with no explanation. The werewolf hunter, Solomon, had potential to be the coolest character. His obsession over werewolves makes sense and I thought him becoming more and more psychotic was interesting at first, but by the end of the movie he's reduced to being a one dimensional villain. The problem is that the movie manages its time poorly. It's overpopulated and the movie doesn't know which characters or what subplots it wants to explore more.
I haven't even gotten to the mystery angle yet and already, this film has failed in my mind. The mystery is painfully obvious because it practically shows us who the killer is early on. But then no one ever seems to suspect this person. Here is a lesson, dear viewers, the killer is usually going to be the person whom the movie never throws suspecion on. It's so predictable that it makes me wonder why they even bothered trying to surprise us. Maybe trying to expand on the source material so much was not a good thing. Speaking of which, the “Little Red Riding Hood” influences become quite distracting when they take the center stage. The movie has variations on the “what big eyes you have” dialogue and the “I have something for you” dialogue and it is hard to take these additions seriously. Honestly, I started laughing whenever they would do something like that. Some things are just not made to adapt I guess and this is one of those situations.
As for the acting, it's slightly below average. Like Kristen Stewart, Amanda Seyfried (Valerie) has talent. Like Stewart, she has nothing to work with and the dialogue really works against her. Honestly, her love interests are so bland that I won't even bother to name them. Let's just say that they made me appreciate Edward Pattinson and Tayler Lautner a lot more. At least they have personalities. Gary Oldman (Solomon) is one of those actors whose abilities seem to vary. His acting isn't very good here, but it is sometimes entertaining. Honestly, I'm not sure if he was having a blast with the role or was utterly bored by it, as his performance goes back and forth between hammy and dull. Virginia Madsen (Suzette) and Julie Christie (Grandmother) both did fine. Billy Burke (Cesaire) looks miserable as the Father. He has nothing to work with and seems to be wondering why he decided to sign up for this piece of shit. The acting is pretty weak overall, but not unbearably so.
The script was written by a guy named David Johnson, who actually has some talent, but I suspect Hardwicke had some heavy imput. This might explain why everything is such a mess. The similarities in dialogue and romance between this and "Twilight" are jarring. With that said, it feels like a really cool action-horror movie was hijacked by an even shittier “Twilight” clone. As I said, I liked the films visual style and think it handled its fantasy-horror elements really well. Hardwicke NAILED this movie there. Unfortunately, the script sucked too much for these elements to really grab me. At first, I was wondering if I was going to partially like the movie. But then I was thinking that the good and the bad canceled each other out.....But the more I realized it, "Red Riding Hood" is just a bad movie with a few good things that keep it from being unwatchable.
Violence: Rated PG-13. Some, not much.
Nudity: There is an 'almost' sex scene. Otherwise its just the actors awkwardly conveying sexuality.
Overall: Avoid “Red Riding Hood” unless you like “Twilight” for how it handles the characters/relationships. If you do, then this might be worth a rental.
1.5/4 Stars
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