The Brothers Grimm are rolling in their grave laughing at how bad "Red Riding Hood" actually is. I walked into this moving not entirely expecting much which got a few looks from the teenage and college girls in the theater that were within earshot. The younger crowd really wanted this movie to be a winner largely due to the vision from Catherine Hardwicke who is the director of the first "Twilight" movie. The studio even tinkered with the idea of bringing in some familiar actors from "Twilight" by including Billy Burke and Taylor Lautner, but decided not to include Lautner. Instead the eye candy for this movie is Amanda Seyfried (Valerie aka Red Riding Hood), Max Irons (Peter), and Shiloh Fernandez (Henry). Since the cast up to this point doesn't have much acting the studio tried to balance things with Virginia Madsen (Suzette aka the Mother) and Gary Oldman (Solomon aka the werewolf hunter).
With all of the effort to putting together a cast that would meet the masses; the movie fails on every level. Set in a small dark village that is haunted by a werewolf, Valerie is in love with Peter a lumberjack, but her family has given her hand to the village blacksmith Henry. The story is simple enough that Valerie and Peter plan to run away together, but the story gets turned on its head when the town calls on Solomon to hunt the wolf before the village is destroyed. Of course nobody is innocent and the methods used to flush out the wolf are insane including a Trojan Horse in the form of an Iron Elephant. Not to be outdone was the accusation of witchcraft where Valerie is put into an iron mask that looked like "Alf".
Gary Oldman and Virginia Madsen are complete opposites in this one where Virginia Madsen is shockingly under performing and Gary Oldman extremely over acts. Amanda Seyfried is like a deer in the headlights acting as stiff as a board during the "emotional" moments. The male eye candy wasn't much better.
I certainly hope that they never attempt to make the Russian tale of Peter and the Wolf because that is pretty clear the direction the studio is trying to go with this movie in the end. Since I have to give this movie a rating, I guess that it is 1 Quack, but to be honest it isn't even worth that much. It will no doubt receive nominations for the Razzies or the beavtrash awards.
(screening date 3/8/11, release date 3/11/11, location Courthouse AMC)
I had a feeling that this movie would be underwhelming. That's rather depressing, I was hoping for better. I'll stick to the animated flicks for now.
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