Save your money for something good and enjoyable

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Hoodwinked (2005): Dir: Cory Edwards / Voices: Anne Hathaway, Patrick Warburton, Jim Belushi, Glenn Close, Cory Edwards: Absolutely hilarious computer animated satire about fairy tales. We have all heard this story at some point in our childhood but chances are that we never heard it told quite like this. Little Red Riding Hood cycles to Granny's house delivering goodies. Once there she is confronted with the big bad wolf and that is where the plot takes an unexpected turn from the traditional story. Red, Granny, the woodsman, and the wolf are all arrested and taken into custody where their versions of the story are revealed. What director Cory Edwards does is double standards all these characters that result in hilarious storytelling that sidelines repetition with surprise. Anne Hathaway voices Red who knows martial arts and is out to solve the case at hand. Patrick Warburton steals scenes as the wolf who claims to be an undercover journalist. Jim Belushi voices the woodsman who dreams of being a stage actor. Glenn Close voices Granny who is a secret daredevil. Their stories parallel but not without surprise. Cory Edwards provides the high sped voice of Twitchy the squirrel, the wolf's photographer sidekick. Colorful and extremely funny reworking of the classic fairy tale that completely overturns our expectations on the roles these characters traditionally played. Score: 9 / 10

It's the classic Red Riding Hood tale but then the police investigation begins. It's an open and shut case until detective Nicky Flippers starts interrogating each of the classic characters. Red was hiding Grandma's recipe from the Goodie Bandit. Wolf is actually an investigative reporter looking for the Goodie Bandit. Granny is an extreme athlete and the Woodsman is a clueless aspiring actor.I don't mind modern references infecting the classic tale. They could do better than Fletch with the investigative reporter. The movie is not done particularly well or funny. The CG animation looks ugly. It has an interesting idea but it needs more compelling writing.

Hoodwinked! is an interesting movie because you generally see an animated movie for the beautiful animation mixed with an emotional/interesting story. However, Hoodwinked! is good mostly for its well written dialogue and interesting twist on the formula. The movie's premise is that the whole story of Little Red Riding Hood is a big mix-up where nobody truly knows the story. The cops bust in and automatically blame the Wolf as being the bad guy, until a detective decides to hear the whole story and figure out who is really behind this whole affair.Since the movie is essentially a mystery, the nice thing is that there actually is a mystery. Granted, anyone over the age of 10 or 12 will probably figure out who the culprit is pretty quickly, it is still nice that the movie doesn't actually write it out for you who the villain is until the characters know who it is. This makes the movie a bit more entertaining because you have to be thinking a little bit while watching the movie. The second time you watch the movie the more clues and hints you will pick up on.As far as characters go, the voice acting is pretty good and most of them are pretty interesting. The Woodsman isn't as interesting, but he isn't horrible or overly annoying.What makes this movie really strong is its writing. A lot of the jokes really work, the timing is really nice, and the absurd amount of puns and other weird things thrown into the movie makes it very entertaining. It is odd how strong this movie's writing and dialogue is compared to its appearance.Unfortunately, the movie has pretty bad animation. Now, to be fair, the movie was made by a very small company on a very small budget. And the movie manages to make all of the important scenes look good. The movie hasn't aged well, but there are still some shots that look nice.The funny thing about Hoodwinked! and its theme of "Don't judge something off of a quick glance" is that it applies to the movie as a whole. From a distance, Hoodwinked! looks like a poorly animated, generic, and bland animated movie. However, it is actually a very funny, entertaining, original, and poorly animated movie.Definitely worth a watch.

I saw this film at the cinema when it was released in the UK in 2006 and I found it enjoyable on the whole, especially the story and the music. I've watched it at least twice more since then; once when I rented it and today when I now own the DVD (which I won online from Jambareeqi, an Internet star who reviews rare animated films on YouTube, including this one that wasn't his cup of tea). On my most recent viewing, the story was as good as I remembered but sadly the character animation wasn't.Starting with the animation, it was inconsistent in quality. The movements were decent half the time but the other half of the animation consisted of choppy, floaty and robotic movements. The same can be said for the character designs. The furry animal characters such as Wolf, Twitchy the Squirrel and Chief Grizzly were well-modelled but the human characters looked plasticky, particularly Red, Nicky Flippers and the woodsman, ugly (the children shown during the schnitzel song) and blocky (again the schnitzel children and the human competitors in the skiing contest). Nevertheless the characters were rich in colour as well as the detailed backgrounds. There are a couple of exciting sequences such as the ride through the mine shaft and Granny's snowboarding and it made sense that certain parts of the animation were repeated to show how well the stories from Red, Wolf, Granny and the woodsman intertwined with one another. Besides the animation quality, the other weakness with the film was its pacing. The part where the four main characters tell their sides of the story is quite rushed but the pacing drags on afterwards and the ending was abrupt. Further to the story, the other strengths were the witty and intelligent dialogue, the music (especially the songs by Red, Japeth the Goat and Boingo and the rock and rap songs over the end credits), the humour from Twitchy, the voice acting and the well-known cast including Anne Hathaway (Red), Patrick Warburton (Wolf), Glenn Close (Granny), Jim Belushi (the woodsman) rapper Xzibit (Chief Grizzly) and David Ogden Steirs (Nicky Flippers, also the voice of John Ratcliffe in Disney's Pocahontas films).Overall, 'Hoodwinked' is a new, engaging and thrilling take on the fairy tale that everyone knows and loves albeit its inconsistencies with its animation quality and pacing. 8/10.