Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

So, yesterday Dan and I saw Red Riding Hood.  Bearing in mind when I embarked on this adventure, I didn’t know much about the film – save for the fact that Amanda Seyfried and the guy from Harry Potter were in it.   That was enough for me to be intrigued.  Never mind the very cool trailers that portrayed the film to be a thriller and promised edge of your seat excitement.

So, how did I feel after seeing it?  Betrayed.  In place of an exciting flick, I got a hokey, Twilight-esque, movie with no reel identity (I had to do it – and you know what, I’m not even sorry).  Really, Red, do you want to be super artistic, or just cheesy?  Did you have a point, or were you just supposed to be entertaining?     

The movie opens with a horrifying scene of two kids – between 6 and 8 I’d say – in the woods who trap a rabbit and intend to kill it.  This is an awfully abrupt way to open a film, and the contrast between super cute made-for-the-big-screen kids and the violence of killing a rabbit didn’t set the right tone – at least not for me.  

The rest of the film follows suit with an odd mix of sweeping shots of the beautiful scenery and the brutality of the situation the village is in.  

Even more than the needless scene with the rabbit, the demise of Claude was unnecessary and awful.  Claude’s character reminded me a bit of Noah Percy from “The Village,” but Hardwicke fell awfully short of Shyamalan’s scapegoat character.  Claude’s death served absolutely no purpose, and was brutal to the point of cringing.  While I was saddened at Noah Percy’s death, I was outraged at Claude’s – and not with Father Solomon.

On top of that, two major elements really bothered me about the film.  One: That she falls in love with the new werewolf.  I’m sorry, when did Jacob and Bella enter the storyline?  What happened to having fresh ideas?  And, aren’t the teen girls vampired and werewolfed out by now?  Seriously, when I was a particularly annoying pre-teen it was all R.L. Stine all the time, and no one beat that dead horse to a movie pulp.  I know Hardwicke is probably laughing all the way to the bank, but still.  

And two: That the dad was the wolf.  What the bleep?  Where did that come from?  I would’ve been sort of satisfied if it had been the grandmother – although the setup for that scenario was so blasted blatant that it wasn’t really even creative by the end.  But no, he comes out of left field and “reveals” himself as the wolf.  It wasn’t even like, “Holy crap, thinking back there were all these signs that he was the wolf, that was such an excellent surprise.”  It was more like, “We wanted you to think it was these two characters, but it wasn’t!  Haha!”

I really wanted this to be an awesome flick, which is probably why I was so disappointed with it.  Here’s what I expected:  Red to be the wolf.  I wanted it to be this deep, psychological thriller where she has this horrible internal struggle, and slowly discovers who/what she is, culminating with the scene where she says “what big eyes you have” and she’s looking in the mirror!  Now there’s a great film.  What happened?

Overall, I’d say this is a good film to watch on TBS.  Possibly Netflix, if you’re super bored and it pops up for free.  It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen, but it was kindof a long way from being anything I would characterize as “good."  Proceed with caution.