Red Riding Hood

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Rated: PG-13

Warner Bros. Pictires: June 14, 2011

100 Minutes

From Amazon:
This is not your grandmother's Red Riding Hood. There's a basket of goodies (not exactly the edible kind), a sweet grandma, a winsome young lass in a beautiful red hood, and a Big Bad Wolf. But there the similarity ends. This Red Riding Hood is shot through the lens of the Twilight films--for wide appeal to the tween and teen audiences, and definitely not a bedtime story for the little ones. Helmed by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, Red Riding Hood bears a lot of the moody trademarks of the vampire series. Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), the plucky girl in the stunning cape, lives in a tiny medieval village whose geography is not specified--it's just very mountainous and remote. Valerie's heart belongs to her childhood friend Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but as Red Riding Hood opens, she learns she has been betrothed to Henry (Max Irons). As if that love triangle weren't enough, it seems a dangerous wolf--or is it werewolf?--has been terrorizing the town for years, and its killing sprees have intensified. When the townsfolk kill a wolf, they think they have finally freed their town from tyranny, and throw a giant bacchanal--like Burning Man in the snow. But then Father Solomon (Gary Oldman, in wickedly good form) appears on the scene to tell the villagers they've killed only a gray wolf--not, in fact, the werewolf he knows is the true villain.

'Red Riding Hood' is a retelling of a classic children's tale with a twist. Although it wasn't scary I still kind of liked it. A lot of people seem to be comparing it too the actual tale where I like to look at things as a stand alone rather than a replica. Even though I heard lots of bad things about 'Red Riding Hood' and it has low ratings, I still wanted to check it out. And I'm glad I did.

While the actual story was not scary or overly gory, I felt like it still had a good story line. There was some morbidity to it and the acting wasn't terrible. I like Amanda Seyfried and love Gary Oldman so they were probably my favorites haha. There wasn't really any gore...well at least any for me. But there were a couple twists along the way and it has that whole 'murder mystery' aspect to it.

Well it's obviously not popular, I still really liked 'Red Riding Hood' so I would suggest that people at least check it out. However, I tend to like things that most people don't. So, don't hold it against me if you hate it. I'm glad that I picked it up and watched it. I thought it was a good movie, good story line, and good actors!

My Rating: 5/5

Ginger