I wouldn't actually have gone to watch this film of my own accord, but I was roped in to act as juvenile escort for the occasion, and after two goes on consecutive days (the screening times had changed) we finally got to see it. I didn't really like it. But... actually, I can see that it's quite good.
There are a lot of references in there (from Arnold Schwarzenegger via Humphrey Bogart to Amelia Earhart) that the target age group simply aren't going to get, so it's clearly setting out to be a cross-generational movie. And for a would-be smartmouthed satire on the fairytale genre, it proves in the end to have a surprisingly warm heart: this is essentially a 'nicer' film than "Shrek". The structure is clever, and yet not (usually) so revisionist as to be annoying: Red Riding Hood is not the villain of the piece, even if the Wolf assumes she is. And I admit that I was rather proud of myself for spotting that there was something suspicious about the bunny at an early stage, right at the moment when the cable-car door mysteriously opened and then Red mysteriously fell out of it, with one person positioned strategically right behind her at the time... even if I did subsequently forget all about it!
For my money, it's a little too snide and self-conscious; but I'm afraid that what really alienated me, and prevented me from ever completely letting go and throwing myself heart and soul into the story, was the cosmetic trappings of the thing. Other people have commented that the computer animation was apparently sub-standard; I wouldn't know anything about that. All I know was that I find this particular fashion for displaying computerised weightless 3D blobs moving around unconvincing and irritating, whether it's "Robots" or "Hoodwinked", in a way that doesn't bother me when it's basic 2D line art -- whether computer-generated or hand-traced cel by cel -- or stop-motion animation, or even Supermarionation (otherwise known as puppetry pure and simple...) So the style put me off. But "Toy Story", which was surely from a much more primitive era, didn't; the failure of the story to distract me from the medium must take some of the blame.
The other thing of which I found myself very conscious, and which wouldn't even have occurred to the makers, was the sheer Americanism of the whole affair, from its 'goodies' and 'cookies' to 'schnitzel-vans' (what on earth are they?), wisecracking rebellious teens, and beehive hair-dos as a marker of old age: this is European myth and legend being given a heavy make-up job to make it palatable to the USA, and it jars as badly as the medieval village maize-field in "Shrek". Like "Nightmare at Christmas", this film simply was not aimed at us... and it has the same basis in the popular customs of a basically alien culture. I don't think I watch enough American TV to be attuned to this sort of thing.
Neither of these problems is one that can be reasonably laid at the feet of the film-makers, so I'm left with the statement with which I started: of its kind, this is probably a pretty good film. But it's not quite my cup of tea.
There are a lot of references in there (from Arnold Schwarzenegger via Humphrey Bogart to Amelia Earhart) that the target age group simply aren't going to get, so it's clearly setting out to be a cross-generational movie. And for a would-be smartmouthed satire on the fairytale genre, it proves in the end to have a surprisingly warm heart: this is essentially a 'nicer' film than "Shrek". The structure is clever, and yet not (usually) so revisionist as to be annoying: Red Riding Hood is not the villain of the piece, even if the Wolf assumes she is. And I admit that I was rather proud of myself for spotting that there was something suspicious about the bunny at an early stage, right at the moment when the cable-car door mysteriously opened and then Red mysteriously fell out of it, with one person positioned strategically right behind her at the time... even if I did subsequently forget all about it!
For my money, it's a little too snide and self-conscious; but I'm afraid that what really alienated me, and prevented me from ever completely letting go and throwing myself heart and soul into the story, was the cosmetic trappings of the thing. Other people have commented that the computer animation was apparently sub-standard; I wouldn't know anything about that. All I know was that I find this particular fashion for displaying computerised weightless 3D blobs moving around unconvincing and irritating, whether it's "Robots" or "Hoodwinked", in a way that doesn't bother me when it's basic 2D line art -- whether computer-generated or hand-traced cel by cel -- or stop-motion animation, or even Supermarionation (otherwise known as puppetry pure and simple...) So the style put me off. But "Toy Story", which was surely from a much more primitive era, didn't; the failure of the story to distract me from the medium must take some of the blame.
The other thing of which I found myself very conscious, and which wouldn't even have occurred to the makers, was the sheer Americanism of the whole affair, from its 'goodies' and 'cookies' to 'schnitzel-vans' (what on earth are they?), wisecracking rebellious teens, and beehive hair-dos as a marker of old age: this is European myth and legend being given a heavy make-up job to make it palatable to the USA, and it jars as badly as the medieval village maize-field in "Shrek". Like "Nightmare at Christmas", this film simply was not aimed at us... and it has the same basis in the popular customs of a basically alien culture. I don't think I watch enough American TV to be attuned to this sort of thing.
Neither of these problems is one that can be reasonably laid at the feet of the film-makers, so I'm left with the statement with which I started: of its kind, this is probably a pretty good film. But it's not quite my cup of tea.