La Véritable Histoire du Petit Chaperon rouge

Despite low-budget animation, the newest feature by the Weinstein Company, "Hoodwinked," is saved by some silly animal and human characters, as well as great writing and hilarious jokes.

Basically, it's the story of Little Red Riding Hood as told from the vantage point of Red (voice of Ann Hathaway), the Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton), Granny (Glenn Close) and a dimwitted, axe-wielding woodsman (Jim Belushi).

The four are arrested, accused of stealing goodie recipes and interrogated by a long-legged frog, Inspector Flippers (David Ogden Stiers). Each suspect tells a different story that somehow cleverly ties the whole event together. In other words, it's like a version of Kurosawa's "Rashomon" as produced by computer animators who could not get work at Pixar, Disney or Dreamworks.

Seeing the studio's press release, I noticed the poor computer work and thought this would be another "Valiant," but the crisp dialogue and truly funny situations made me laugh almost all the way through this film, which is director Cory Edwards' feature debut.

It's also a much more entertaining picture than "Chicken Little" or "Shark Tale" could ever hope to be. And while the puns are pretty much aimed at adults, the kids will enjoy the many animal characters, such as pigs as policemen (get it?!), a singing, hillbilly goat (Benjy Gaither), a squirrel on speed (director Edwards), a Huggy bear-type stool pigeon sheep (Chazz Palimeri) and a tricky little bunny, Boingo (Andy Dick).

This film runs 85 minutes and opens for wide release on Friday, Jan. 13.

Lots of people bitch about the animation being pretty stone age in this film, and for a reason. Technically, "Hoodwinked" is far behind "Finding Nemo" or "Incredibles". However, if you look past the unpretty exterior, there is plenty of goodies to found inside. Hilarious punchlines and a clever script by far makes up for the lack of jaw-dropping animation. Actually, I found the outdated CGI to add another layer of quirkiness to this little flick! When comparing "Hoodwinked" to other recent releases in the genre, it comes out with flying colors. Where "Chicken Little" and "Valiant" fail, this one really excels! Dialogues are well written and full of treats that makes this one a movie to see more than once. And for once, I even enjoyed the musical numbers, catchy and well performed. It doesn't have any scenes that - like "Shark Tale" - fell plastic or numb, instead it's an 80 minute, twisting and turning roller-coaster that doesn't stop until the credits start rolling. All you have to to is buckle up, and enjoy the ride

HOODWINKED easily could have been an excellent film. Who hasn't heard of Little Red Riding Hood? It unfolds as an ongoing investigation into the facts, where each character, one by one, recounts events from their own perspective. Sound interesting? Well, it seems HOODWINKED was truly well conceived, but experienced several setbacks during its execution.

What began in the mid-nineties with Toy Story, soon followed by SHREK and Finding Nemo, the C G I Category (Computer Generated Images) continues to establish itself as a more dominant genre with each passing year! But ALL CGI movies can't be a TOY STORY, a SHREK or a FINDING NEMO (Shame, that!)

First off, the animation in HOODWINKED, by Weinstein Studios(??) just didn't manage to convince me! In their intent to mimic the "CLAYMATION" of Wallace and Grommit, they placed a limitation on themselves which impeded them from realizing the full potential of the CGI process. In addition, they were incapable of making a film like SHREK, for example, which encountered great acceptance from both adults and from children alike! Nevertheless, since there are really so few good comedies nowadays, HOODWINKED Is quite acceptable! 6.75******* SEP/07.

I'm not going to give Hoodwinked a harsh review like so many others. This is primarily a kids movie, nothing more, nothing less. All the kids in the cinema that I was in were roaring with laughter and I must admit at times I was also laughing out loud. Some of the older people and parents will enjoy the references it makes to other movies and fairy tales, although they are dumbed down for the suited audience.

The plot is almost like an animated, kids version of Pulp Fiction. Many different stories (told by Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf, The Woodsman and Granny) intertwine.

The voice actors all do a great job with their characters and the animation, although nowhere near the best, was still pretty good. The characters were all hilarious, the funniest being a singing goat and a nutty squirrel (who I think was high).

3/5.

Hoodwinked is an ultra low budget affair compared to the average 3D CGI-animated film (it was shot for a reported 15 million vs 70 to 90 million for films like Finding Nemo or Shrek 2). If you want a fairer comparison in terms of animation quality, you'd have to look at something like Jimmy Neutron (30 million budget).

What really made the animation work in terms of style is...the style. Hoodwinked almost looks like a revved up Rankin-Bass stop motion animated film in the vein of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Once you get absorbed in the world of Hoodwinked, you stop comparing it to Pixar and simply enjoy the magic little world the creators obviously put so much care into creating.

And the film is indeed absorbing! It starts a little slow, but once the story picks up steam, it is non-stop fun. It's clear that the writers weren't going to let a lower budget stop them from writing a clever and often laugh-out-loud funny script. My kids, aged 12, 8, and 3, giggled throughout the film. Your kids will LOVE the squirrel, the granny, and the singing goat, and adults will pick up more culture references in terms of homage scenes (not in adult content) to pictures like Fletch, Kill Bill, and the Matrix.

One thing comes across very clearly in Hoodwinked--love of the craft. So many seemingly throw away gags end up being very important to the story later on. Enjoy this little gem of an "indie" animated film, and imagine what these young guys could do with a bigger budget next time around!