Grandma. What big teeth you have - All the better to gobble this turkey with, my dear!!
Many people know that the most common children's' tales, especially those from the likes of the brothers Grimm, started out as scary, violent, and unpleasant, but have evolved over time, being toned down with each generation, until they are just a shadow of what they used to be, no teeth, no claws, just innocent & sugary sweet stories with little heart and too much nostalgia.
Considering this, you'd have thought writing a good script for any movie based on a fairytale would be a piece of cake. Just do a bit of historical research, find an old version of the tale, flesh it out, and hey presto! Great storyline!
Red Riding Hood shows us how not to do it! For a start, they stripped the story down to the raw ingredients: (Pretty girl with a red cloak, a wolf, a grandmother, a forest), stuck in a whole load of other characters that serve little purpose to the storyline, added a love triangle and a baddie, then suddenly remembered that this was supposed to be a horror film, so they made the wolf into a WEREwolf.
OK, so it's difficult to spin the tale out to a 100 minute long storyline, but it would have been more entertaining to have just seen Valerie walk in the woods for 80 minutes, and the remaining 20 minutes to be filled with the encounter etc. - All things considered, because the cinematography was absolutely beautiful, this would have been a vast improvement on this film!
Trying to follow the story, the love triangles, the family trysts and deceptions, the "Who desired who, and who has an unrequieted love for..." was more akin to a really bad soap opera than a Gothic horror. This comparison is all the easier considering some of the trite lines and deadpan expressions from some of the actors.
A few moments made this film more bearable for me. It was very stylishly shot, and Gary Oldman's presence made the movie slightly more entertaining, but not enough to rescue this movie.
Unfortunately, it is one for the Twilight generation - a bunch of very pretty boy & girl actors who affect unfocused glassy-eyed expressions to try to convey 'Wisdom beyond their years', and a storyline that was borrowed from a Mills & Boon novella & forced into a mould that didn't quite fit.
Considering this, you'd have thought writing a good script for any movie based on a fairytale would be a piece of cake. Just do a bit of historical research, find an old version of the tale, flesh it out, and hey presto! Great storyline!
Red Riding Hood shows us how not to do it! For a start, they stripped the story down to the raw ingredients: (Pretty girl with a red cloak, a wolf, a grandmother, a forest), stuck in a whole load of other characters that serve little purpose to the storyline, added a love triangle and a baddie, then suddenly remembered that this was supposed to be a horror film, so they made the wolf into a WEREwolf.
OK, so it's difficult to spin the tale out to a 100 minute long storyline, but it would have been more entertaining to have just seen Valerie walk in the woods for 80 minutes, and the remaining 20 minutes to be filled with the encounter etc. - All things considered, because the cinematography was absolutely beautiful, this would have been a vast improvement on this film!
Trying to follow the story, the love triangles, the family trysts and deceptions, the "Who desired who, and who has an unrequieted love for..." was more akin to a really bad soap opera than a Gothic horror. This comparison is all the easier considering some of the trite lines and deadpan expressions from some of the actors.
A few moments made this film more bearable for me. It was very stylishly shot, and Gary Oldman's presence made the movie slightly more entertaining, but not enough to rescue this movie.
Unfortunately, it is one for the Twilight generation - a bunch of very pretty boy & girl actors who affect unfocused glassy-eyed expressions to try to convey 'Wisdom beyond their years', and a storyline that was borrowed from a Mills & Boon novella & forced into a mould that didn't quite fit.
- Trelloskilos
- Apr 26, 2011