Wednesday, February 15, 2012

RED RIDING HOOD (2011)

For what it is RED RIDING HOOD is an entertaining enough movie. It's kinda a dreamy, light-weight re-telling of the "Little Red Riding Hood" story, but instead of a girl walking to Grandmother's house there's a small village that's being terrorized by a werewolf. Unfortunately the "werewolf" doesn't look like a half-man/half-wolf creature, but instead like a large CGI wolf that walks around on all fours.

After the first few killings, not shown onscreen, just implied, a holy man (Gary Oldman) and his soldiers comes to the village to kill the wolf. Through all of this the beautiful Amanda Seyfried is caught in a love triangle between the man she's loved since childhood and the guy her family has arranged for her to marry.

I attentively watched the entire movie, but I would have been much happier if the filmmakers had went ahead and bumped it up some with the violence. With a PG-13 rating I assume they were going for a young teenage girl audience which is sad because this story had some real potential to be something unique, but instead they took the safe and easy path and ended up with a watchable but wholly forgettable film. The main thing RED RIDING HOOD accomplished was making me want to watch LEGEND again.

Worth a rent, but that's it.