Twisted take on fairy tale eventually turns rancid
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, January 12, 2006
Not unlike the “Fractured Fairy Tales” from the old Rocky &Bullwinkle show, the new animated film “Hoodwinked” plays fast and loose with tradition. You know the basics of this one: a girl in a red hood, granny’s house, a wolf.
The makers of “Hoodwinked” have taken the particulars of the fairy tale and treated them like clues in a police procedural. That’s how a frog detective named Nicky Flippers (voiced by David Ogden Stiers), who speaks in a dry English accent, comes to gather the principals in the case for a thorough interrogation.
What unfolds is the “Rashomon” of fairy tales. It seems even the big bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) has his reasons – he tells his side of the story, as does Red (Anne Hathaway), Granny (Glenn Close), and the Woodsman (Jim Belushi). All of them have motivations for being the devious Goody Thief of the forest, but no one’s been caught, as it were, red-handed.
Some extremely goofy songs, especially those delivered by a big-horned folk-singing goat, take us from one perspective on the story to the next. Other characters abound, including the frog’s police animal assistants (voiced by Anthony Anderson and Xzibit), an extremely hyper squirrel, and a vaguely irritating bunny (Andy Dick) whose personality is somewhere between used-car salesman and strip-club bouncer.
This is no Disney traipse through butterflies and daisies. “Hoodwinked” is jokey and sarcastic, an approach that wears out its welcome. The movie made me laugh, but its attitude began to feel rancid after a while.
The technique of showing the same story from multiple perspectives can get repetitive, but on the other hand kids love to watch the same videos over and over again, so maybe they’ll dig the premise more than adults will.
| Slow fracture: A “Rashomon” take on the little Red Riding Hood story, with the particulars of the case treated as clues in a police procedural. Pretty funny for a while, and the computer animation is cool, but it has a sour aftertaste.
Rated: PG rating is for subject matter Now showing: Everett Mall, Marysville, Pacific Place, Woodinville, Cascade |
The computer animation looks cool, and by and large the voice performances are winning, with Stiers really funny as the frog and Hathaway fetching and clever as Red. Miss Riding Hood, by the way, appears to have picked up some training in Asian martial arts somewhere – one of the many tweaky things about this version of the story.
Those old Fractured Fairy Tales had one thing right: brevity. The twisted approach goes sour over time, but five minutes of fracture is just exactly right.
“Hoodwinked” plays with the Little Red Riding Hood story.
