From the director of Twilight, Red Riding Hood almost feels like the same movie. Well, Red Riding Hood is better than Twilight. It offers a great cast and beautiful scenery. The discovery of who the werewolf is is actually surprising and ties everything together quite nicely. On the other hand, everyone seems to have pale skin and one character even has the exact same hairdo as Edward. Plus, the movie has a female trying to choose between two men—sound familiar? On top of that, it has some terrible dialogue. No matter how hard they try to scare you, they are unsuccessful. This fairy tale based movie had real potential to be original and different, but the direction and execution is mishandled completely.
Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) has grown up and fallen in love with Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents (Billy Burke and Virginia Madsen) have chosen a wealthy young man named Henry (Max Irons) for her to marry. But Valerie and Peter choose each other and plan to run away until her older sister is attacked and killed by the werewolf who has haunted their village for decades.
The people of the village have sacrificed one of their livestock every month to keep the beast away, but now it is the week of the blood red moon, which means if bitten by the werewolf then you will become one, and it wants Valerie. They reach out to Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), a man who has had personal experience when it comes to werewolves. Once he tells everyone that during the day the monster takes human form, everyone becomes suspicious. No one is safe or can be trusted.
Seyfried does a terrific job playing Red Riding Hood. She is a young, beautiful actress who has a lot going for her. She gives it her all and tries to seem as honest and terrified as possible. But, everything that is happening around her does not make us believers. Even Oldman, whose character shows no mercy and killed his own wife because she was a werewolf, cannot help the material from reaching a higher level of entertainment or enjoyment for that matter.
Director Catherine Hardwicke only got to direct the first Twilight movie. She must have wanted to do more of them and this was her way of doing so. She must have been real excited to get the classy and talented Julie Christie to play the grandmother and have a scene where those famous lines about how big her eyes, ears, and teeth are. Too bad its more funny than interesting or scary and that goes for most of the movie as well.
Red Riding Hood should have been darker, edgier. Yet, its PG-13 and has murders without blood. It’s for teenagers instead of adults. If it wasn’t for the look of the movie, the revealing of who the werewolf is, and why it killed who it did, this movie would have been a complete letdown.
“Nature Boy” Brandon Vick is the resident film critic of the SoBros Network, and star of Brandon’s Box Office In Your Mouth. Follow him on Twitter@SirBrandonV and be sure to search #VicksFlicks for all of his latest movie reviews.
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