Review: Hoodwinked (2005) · 4:28am Sep 15th, 2015
So yeah, seeking to distract myself from the more heavy pressures in life, I watched Hoodwinked on Netflix Instant Watch, and really, in all honesty, that film always manages to make me smile.
I mean, yes, the animation isn't exactly good, mostly because the film had a rather low budget, so, in an effort to disguise the limited animation, they intentionally attempt to evoke the Rankin Bass stop motion look. This, obviously, leads to quite a bit of the Uncanny Valley, and that's really my biggest gripe. Since it's CGI animation, everything looks a bit...odd and stiff to say the least.
LUCKILY, the film's screenplay more then makes up for it, since it's almost as if Quentin Tarantino read Red Riding Hood, and then decided to make an intentional, Rashomon style deconstruction/parody of it, intercutting between the different POVs of the different characters, all with this infectious, truly witty tongue and cheek nature to it.
The voice acting, re-dubbed later in production at the 'request' (read: order) of the Wienstein's, consists of a bevvy of recognizable voices, including Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Patrick Warburton, David Ogden Steers, Andy Dick, Anthony Anderson and Jim Belushi. They all do a great job, and honestly I couldn't tell that these were replacement voice actors, so that's good.
Now, due to the fast paced, Rashomon styled story with at least five separate plot lines and various subplots, a lot of the film's charm comes from multiple viewings, since much of the film's humor and story is based on the different ways the characters perceive each other and the events that take place over the course of the story. More often then not, one character's story is a background event in another character's story, and visa versa. So each time you see the movie, you notice a neat little story point or detail, and that enhances the film, at least for me.
So yeah, this film is rather odd, and was obviously overshadowed by DreamWorks' crap like Shrek and Shark Tale, but for me, it's superior. No tacky pop culture references, and thankfully no toilet humor to be seen. Instead, the humor is character interaction based, and that's my favorite kind of humor really.
So for me, it's a 4 star movie, with one point off only due to the admittedly sub-par animation.
weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/life-is-hard-right-wrong.jpg
Nah, JK. I generally place this film in the Not-Terribly-Good-But-Pretty-Fun category. But it's been a few years. It might be better on re-watch.