Hoodwinked!

"Hoodwinked!"
Cory and Todd Edwards, 2005

"Hoodwinked!" is a very low-budget film with very cheap-looking animation; and often, its many attempts at humor fall flat. Nevertheless, it is a surprisingly amusing take on the prototypical "who-dunnit" scenario. Here, a burglar is stealing all of the independent business' secret recipes, driving the forest critters out of business. It is in this situation that our four protagonists unwittingly converge: Little Red Riding Hood (voiced by Anne Hathaway), her kick-ass Grandma (Glenn Close) who runs a cookie-baking company, the Wolf (Patrick Warborton) who is an investigative journalist, and the Woodsman (James Belushi) who is a failing amateur actor. The plot is predictable, and it is obvious who the villain is from the start, but there are those surprisingly fun moments where the film transcends its limited scope. ("I should have been a movie critic!," says the beleagured Wolf at one point.) The film aims to be amusing, and that's exactly what it accomplishes.

Rating: 6

First Viewed: 8/6/08, on DVD - IMDb