With the recent wave of wacky PG-rated CGI films and the never-ending fad of the fractured fairy tale, the low-budget B-List Hoodwinked still has a new trick or two for us.
It's a different take on the Red Riding Hood tale: the gruff Chief Grizzly is about to take in Red, Granny, the Wolf, and the Woodsman for breaking and entering, wielding an axe without a license, and possible connections to the current rash of goodie thefts, but the mild-mannered frog sleuth Nicky "Flippers" decides to take over investigations. From here, the four main characters each tell their sides of the story to clear up just what happened that fateful day.
This film is rather uneven, and one must expect that from what we are given. All the characters have something hidden in their characters: Red is a black-belt karate champion; Granny is doing extreme-sports (and she won't even tell her own granddaughter!); and the Wolf is a Fletch-inspired undercover journalist accompanied by a hyperactive squirrel photographer. These are the sort of jokes just bordering on the edge of cliché. So why is the Woodsman's tale so good? Kirk is not actually a Woodsman but a faintly Austrian actor. His Schnitzel song (which he sings as he sells Schnitzel-on-a-Stick to the children as a day job) and his first attempts at woodcutting (which he takes up to get in the mindset for a Paul Bunion Cream commercial) are comic highlights.
And these gags are surprisingly effective thanks to the rather jumpy animation. Most CGI animation is very fluid, true to life, but in Hoodwinked, the characters which are animated least fluidly make the best impression as they cut suddenly between poses. It's almost as if this movie could be a bit better hand-drawn rather than computer-animated. Watch the Woodsman and Twitchy the Squirrel; it's been a long time since somebody's facial expressions have made me laugh.
SPOILER: Nothing is remarkable about the voicework except for Andy Dick as Red's rabbit friend Boingo. Encountering each of the four main characters with a sort of David Spade snarkiness, Boingo's flair is all the more invigorating when we find that it is actually Boingo who is the evil genius behind the goodie robberies. His command to henchman Keith is memorable, and the simple demented glee with which he relishes his plot is darkly hilarious. (If I could just find a picture of Boingo, he'll become my new message-board avatar.)
This is truly something completely different. A lot of it is your standard (if interestingly twisted) take on the fractured fairy tale, but every now and then there is a minute of unmitigated hilarity. All-in-all, it's something I'd recommend you rent at Hollywood Video for one night with your Monty Python friends.
It's a different take on the Red Riding Hood tale: the gruff Chief Grizzly is about to take in Red, Granny, the Wolf, and the Woodsman for breaking and entering, wielding an axe without a license, and possible connections to the current rash of goodie thefts, but the mild-mannered frog sleuth Nicky "Flippers" decides to take over investigations. From here, the four main characters each tell their sides of the story to clear up just what happened that fateful day.
This film is rather uneven, and one must expect that from what we are given. All the characters have something hidden in their characters: Red is a black-belt karate champion; Granny is doing extreme-sports (and she won't even tell her own granddaughter!); and the Wolf is a Fletch-inspired undercover journalist accompanied by a hyperactive squirrel photographer. These are the sort of jokes just bordering on the edge of cliché. So why is the Woodsman's tale so good? Kirk is not actually a Woodsman but a faintly Austrian actor. His Schnitzel song (which he sings as he sells Schnitzel-on-a-Stick to the children as a day job) and his first attempts at woodcutting (which he takes up to get in the mindset for a Paul Bunion Cream commercial) are comic highlights.
And these gags are surprisingly effective thanks to the rather jumpy animation. Most CGI animation is very fluid, true to life, but in Hoodwinked, the characters which are animated least fluidly make the best impression as they cut suddenly between poses. It's almost as if this movie could be a bit better hand-drawn rather than computer-animated. Watch the Woodsman and Twitchy the Squirrel; it's been a long time since somebody's facial expressions have made me laugh.
SPOILER: Nothing is remarkable about the voicework except for Andy Dick as Red's rabbit friend Boingo. Encountering each of the four main characters with a sort of David Spade snarkiness, Boingo's flair is all the more invigorating when we find that it is actually Boingo who is the evil genius behind the goodie robberies. His command to henchman Keith is memorable, and the simple demented glee with which he relishes his plot is darkly hilarious. (If I could just find a picture of Boingo, he'll become my new message-board avatar.)
This is truly something completely different. A lot of it is your standard (if interestingly twisted) take on the fractured fairy tale, but every now and then there is a minute of unmitigated hilarity. All-in-all, it's something I'd recommend you rent at Hollywood Video for one night with your Monty Python friends.