The recipes of candies of the goody shops have been stolen by the Goody Bandit, and many animals are out of business. While the police are chasing the criminal, there is a mess at Granny's house ev...
Hoodwinked interrogates its fairy tale whimsicality whilst bludgeoning your bleeding eyes. 'Shrek' has nothing to fear. He still remains the lord of the swamp. But Little Red Riding Hood, or rather aptly abbreviated to Red, had the wit and comedic karate chops to decommission the aforementioned franchise for good. Maybe? Yeah, probably not. But with the ingenious use of character backstories retelling the events leading up to the folklore legend of the Big Bad Wolf disguising himself as Granny, the potential was unfathomable. Incalculable, even.
It's the animated version of Kurosawa's 'Rashomon'. That, with the alterations in its fairy tale origins, was the perfect recipe for cinematic baking goodness that not even the Goody Bandit himself could steal. Alas, just wasn't meant to be for director Edwards and his miniscule budget, producing one of the most eye-wincing animations to ever poison my retinas.
Innocent Red cycling along the forest path, singing her qualms away whilst illegally being flown by a flock of birds. The Big Bad Wolf enhancing his reporting skills by disguising himself as a plethora of characters to obtain relevant information. Granny, running on (Vin) diesel as she inhibits her inner 'xXx' participating in extreme sports screaming "Bonzai!". And Kirk, the amateur schnitzel-selling actor trying to find his inner woodsman by literally "becoming" a woodsman. Bolstered by a screenplay that is hilariously cheesy, packed full of puns and parodying various pop culture references, which consequently does diminish its sense of timelessness, these characters had sustained amount of memorability.
Forget about the irritating musical inspired songs that sees a mountain goat yodel his way to changing horns every second. Put aside the uninspired voice acting from Hathaway, as Warburton's voice is everything in life therefore masquerading all issues (duh!). Hoodwinked's characters and change of narrative structure are truly special, even if its overall stance offers nothing new. Except Twitchy. He can be squirrel stew for all I care. A-nnoy-ing.
Every star was aligned for Edwards. He was ready to release the next best animation. Until said animation was produced in the Philippines, to save costs, by a start-up company that had "little experience with computer-animation". Oh boy, does it show. Untextured polygons plagued the backdrops. Stilted character models that had zero fluidity. Atrocious facial movements one would find in the depths of one's nightmares. Inconsistent layering. Non-existing lighting. Schnitzel-eating children that look like human piglets. A European ski team zapped straight out of 'SSX'. And the complete disregard of physics in general. This is, and I hate myself for saying this, 'Foodfight' quality of animation.
Hoodwinked, for all intent and purposes, was hoodwinked in itself. A cost-saving animation that relinquished the hilarity to be had, diminishing a perfectly adequate script through eye-gouging visuals. You'll be laughing, but for all the wrong reasons…
