movie review
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
Sequel tries too hard, misses the mark
Buy on Amazon.com
Watch the Trailer
Comments
Need family movie and/or TV content for your publication? Email Jane Boursaw, .
You know how sometimes a really great family movie goes on to result in a really great sequel? Well, don’t look for that here.
We absolutely loved the first ‘Hoodwinked’ movie in this house. It was funny, the references were hilarious, and it had some of the best lines and timing in family movie history. That movie came out in 2005, and we still laugh about the yodeling goat, theater-obsessed Woodsman, and undercover Wolf. ‘Hoodwinked’ took the original fairytale and turned it on its head, and the big reveal that Granny was an extreme sports enthusiast? Brilliant.
But ‘Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil’ has none of that. It basically takes everything we loved about the first movie and sucks it into a cliché-ridden whirlpool with no hope of ever getting out. It’s not like they don’t have good people involved. Most of the original voice cast returned, including Glenn Close (Granny Puckett), Patrick Warburton (the Wolf), and David Ogden Stiers (Nicky Flippers).
And the replacements are nothing to scoff at either – Martin Short took over for Jim Belushi as the Woodsman, and Hayden Panettiere replaced Anne Hathaway as Red Riding Hood. I admit, I do love Hathaway’s voice, but Panettiere is great, too.
So where did they go wrong? By taking all the great elements of the first movie and trying to amplify them times ten in the sequel. The result is a big jumbled mess with too many lines on top of each other (the writing isn’t great to begin with), too many characters (including the addition of Joan Cusak as Verushka the Witch and Bill Hader and Amy Poehler as Hansel and Gretel), and too many dated punchlines and tired references.
They could have done a lot with the story, which finds Red training in a distant land with a mysterious group called the Sisters of the Hood. But she’s forced to cut her training short when she gets an urgent call from Nicky Flippers, head of the super-secret Happily Ever After Agency. He needs her to pair up with the Wolf and investigate the disappearance of two innocent children, Hansel and Gretel. There’s also a magic truffle that could prove disastrous in the wrong hands.
Granny, that over-caffeinated squirrel Twitchy, and others are on hand to help solve the forest’s latest caper. If only they could have rescued this movie from itself. If you have little ones who liked the first ‘Hoodwinked,’ this might be worth renting on DVD down the line, especially since it does promote the fact that girls can be strong and fearless. But there are definitely better family movies out right now, including ‘Rio’ and ‘Hop.’
Comments on Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
Post a Comment