My Movie Review on Hoodwinked (2005)
Yo, what's up, Kemosabes?
This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, for the 1st installment of this year's "Spook Spectacular", I'm gonna give you guys my take of "Hoodwinked".
Here's the rundown of this tale:
In the midst of a crime spree of stolen goodie recipes caused by the "Goody Bandit", the police of a fairytale dystopia investigate a disturbance at a house in the middle of a forest. The disturbance in question is caused by Red Puckett (Little Red Riding Hood), a suspicious wolf named Wolf W. Wolf, a woodsman named Kirk, and a goody tycoon named Granny Abigail Puckett (Red's grandmother). When an accomplished detective named Nicky Flippers arrives on the scene, he decides that the best way to know what happened is to question every suspect one at a time.
As the stories unfold, Flippers realizes that all four individuals are somehow connected to the Goody Bandit.
I know that I wasn't requested to review this movie by anyone, but...I wanted to review "Hoodwinked" based on some research I did on it in the past. And I really can't lie, the involvements of Patrick Warburton, Andy Dick, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Anne Hathaway, and David Ogden Stiers were quite a draw-in for me.
I remember seeing bits and pieces of the film one time on Cartoon Network as a kid, so I wasn't a complete stranger to it. In retrospect, I'm not sure "Hoodwinked" was something I got fully engaged by due to not understanding the concept back then. But, I grew interested in giving the whole film a try as an adult.
In preparation for analyzing "Hoodwinked", I saw it two times via YouTube. The reason for why I watched the movie twice was because nothing was clicking in my head the first time.
After I saw "Hoodwinked" for the second time, though...I found myself enjoying the movie in more ways than I expected! It's a flawed film, yet it's also worthwhile and fun in its own way.
A detractor I noted was that the animation quality was flawed in some ways. There were aspects I was impressed by, and other aspects that didn't appeal to me. The character animation was a particularly mixed bag for me.
When I saw the whole thing for the first time, I was admittedly unimpressed with the animation for the human characters. The second time, I found myself alright with how the humans looked. But, the prime character animations that I wasn't fond of even after seeing the film for the second time were with a majority of the background characters, such as the porcupine and deer characters. They carried too much of an uncanny valley effect sorta look and feel.
Nevertheless, there are character animations that I consider to be a highlight. I absolutely loved the animators' work on Wolf, Boingo, Nicky Flippers, Twitchy, and Ted Grizzly. Several of the animal characters outside of the ones I mentioned were also very appealing to the eye, and the lip movements of every character was in sync with the voice acting.
The animation for the background and settings were likewise amazingly well-done. I love the storybook feel and look that the animators created for this movie, and the best part was that it nicely complimented the story and parody of "Little Red Riding Hood" splendidly.
The direction by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech, the story by the Edwards brothers, and the screenplay by them and Mr. Leech, were entertaining to a tee.
The one nitpick I pinpointed regarding the movie in the directing and story category was that some of the jokes felt out of place, mainly in terms of execution and timing. Particularly the photograph-display jokes, such as the one displaying Wolf and his family. The biggest problem was that while I did find them to be amusing, they distracted from the story and were too out of nowhere.
Despite this, the filmmakers certainly did know how to come up with a concept that was incredibly inspired and witty.
Aside from the jokes I already mentioned, the story contained lots of gags that were not only fun to watch but genuinely innocent. As a parody of a famous fairytale, the storyline was original and very well-worked, mainly because I don't recall a movie before "Hoodwinked" having this kind of plot. Plus, the film wasn't without heart, emotion, and morals.
One aspect that I believe helps this movie standout is its usage of backstories and a police interrogation. An old saying I'm familiar with is "There's More than One Side to Every Story", although I'd remember that only one person would actually be telling the truth. In this movie, though, that saying was taken at an incredibly grand level. Not only did the backstories genuinely show who Red, Wolf, Granny, and Kirk are as characters, but their stories didn't make the other parties look bad, which helped each character's story be believable. The events transpiring around them also helped the story become clearer and clearer as it progressed. The movie's "Never Judge a Book by its Cover" theme was extremely well-done too, and so were the morals that were based on it. All in all, the way the filmmakers approached each of these themes is something that I favorably compare to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's "Daring Doubt", and if you want to know why you can certainly check out my review on that episode.
Finally, the voice acting, casting, characters, and character development were amazing!
The special thing about the choice in casting is that the performers were not only perfect for their individual parts, but they portrayed their characters to where they managed to give texture and sense of dimension. Everyone aboard the film incorporated wonderful personality and comedic-timings, and they sounded like they were having a great time being part of the movie. My favorites were that of Patrick Warburton as Wolf, Andy Dick as Boingo (who also killed it with singing "On Top of the Woods"), David Ogden Stiers as Flippers, and Anne Hathaway as Red.
The characters themselves proved to be as distinct as possible, because they weren't without memorable personalities and traits. The overall character development was dynamic, if I may add.
In conclusion, "Hoodwinked" isn't a movie that I consider to be a flawless endeavor, and that's mainly due to the nitpicks I noted. But, it contains so many fun qualities that actually help this independent animated feature be worthwhile and entertaining. For me, it's pretty much a new guilty pleasure of mine.
So, I rate "Hoodwinked" four out of five stars.
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