Thursday, March 10, 2011

Red Riding Hood Review


Wow, what a horrible film. I just wanted to get that out. Even in the previews, it seemed that the premise was going to get spread much too thin if thats as deep as the film was going to get. It turned out to be the case. Catherine Hardwick threw up all her Twilight leftovers on this film and hoped for the best. It did not work out. The quality cinematography was done at what seems to have been great expense but creatively it really did seem like a frame by frame rehash of what she’s known for. The sweeping helicopter shots, the dim lit ambiance of young love, and working with wolves. She didn’t go far outside her range with this one. My son said it best at the opening scene, which by the way is a snowy overhead shot of mountains, with a well timed “And somewhere in Spoons.” He set up the rest of the movie. The cast did their job well enough. Amanda Seyfried was her doe eyed self with Billy Burke pulling off the roll without any major discredit. Gary Oldman was a nice addition to the movie after it had droned on far too long between action scenes. Sadly the biggest disappointment was Shiloh Fernandez who came off incredibly stale in his roll as he attempted to make it a vampire movie. Short of calling it a disaster, it was a mess of a movie that tries to walk the line between horror, teen dream, and a period flick and polishes off a huge failure. Oh, but it had a nice red cloak.