The Low-Down Red Riding Hood: a fairy tale with a twist that is painfully reminiscent of the first Twilight. This movie was so terrible that it actually cheered me up, because I spent the entire time watching it thinking of exactly how I was going to demolish it in a particularly vengeful blog review.
Don’t worry, I’ll try to be nice. Ish.
If you’re a parent worried about letting your kid see it, it’s a movie that’s about as safe as a new puppy. It’s cute, furry, and visually adorable, but it may try to nip at you once in a while and will almost certainly try to have babies with your leg.
Content-wise, the naughtiest bit this movie has to offer is some suggestive partial undressing (no skin shown, or even revealed off-camera) and some kissing. It does get a little violent, I suppose, considering there is a giant wolf running around eating people, but very little is shown—if it is shown, it’s tragically fake and not at all disturbing. At one point someone’s hand is bitten off to become a Halloween-style prop, and that is literally the worst this movie can dish out.
Will you like it? If you like Twilight, then yes you will. And I sympathize that you had such a poor and deprived upbringing that your mother taught you to watch movies like this. If you didn’t like Twilight, or liked it but had your issues with it, then read on.
Good Points There were some good points to this movie, and for fear of sounding too negative, I think I should point those out first.
The first saving grace was Amanda Seyfried, who unlike a certain parallel counter-part whose shoes it looked suspiciously like she was being encouraged to fill, is a decent actress. I wasn’t blown away by her performance by a long shot, but she didn’t make me want to cringe away from the screen in horror and plug my ears lest my children’s children be tainted by her soul-wilting wooden delivery and stage presence (or lack thereof).
The second redeeming element was the scenery: panorama shots, location, etc. The moviemakers definitely had something going for them in this department, though I need not point out that they almost completely wasted said scenery, or else completely desecrated it by the strategic placement of glaringly fake backlighting. Considering we’re dealing with the director of the original Twilight movie here, however, I’m honestly not surprised.
The third and final redeeming factor was simply that I went to the movie on a Tuesday night, and the theater offers a free bottomless bag of popcorn on Tuesdays. YAY popcorn!
Bad Points Considering that I already let my innate cynicism and sarcastic commentary leak into the “Good Points” section, those who have already seen and enjoyed this movie, or even those who are the kind and sensitive type, might not want to read any further.
You’ve been warned.
There were a lot of “bad points” to this movie, so I won’t waste my time with the small things. I’ll just hit on the really big, glaring, “punch-you-in-the-eye-with-my-atrocity” type.
First and foremost: SWEET LORD IN HEAVEN, we get it lady. You directed Twilight. You don’t have to point it out to us in every scene by forcing every male lead to sport a six-inch coif of over-gelled hair that would make Elvis cry out from his grave in horror and betrayal. I mean, come on. If you were a director trying to depict a winsome, fantasy-esque fairy tale with a dark twist, would you really throw off your entire illusion by slapping a pound of pomade on the lead's head? Furthermore, would you take a step back, look critically at your sticky, hairy masterpiece, and think “Yeah, that’ll do it”?
Moving on. Bad point numero dos. The costumes. And this is a double whammy, because the costume designs themselves were actually really good. They were in no way period-accurate of course, but we can buy that because firstly it’s a fairy tale, and secondly because it’s a fairy tale with a twist. I actually spent some time admiring the costume work until I began to realize one thing. Every single costume was brand spanking NEW. No stains or wear or fading. None of that. The occasional cloak or smock had a hole in it or something, but these always looked terribly contrived, as if some particularly bright wardrobe stylist had said, “oh, that should look a little worn out!” and then promptly taken a pair of scissors to it. And made a neat little hole. With clean edges. Whaaaaat?
Let’s not get hung up on details. But the details sucked. Lighting, particularly. You know that horrendous, brightly-colored shining backlight that a lot of directors from the 90’s liked to use to light up their outdoors scenes and which they now pretend never happened? That was in this movie. Everywhere. Ooooh, pretty forest. It almost looks real, except for that semi-truck shining it’s lights onto the set.
The script. Dear God, whoever wrote the script for this movie should be taken out and shot. I’m a little embarrassed to be breathing the same air as these people. Apparently these writers never got past the “Introduction to Independent Clauses” lesson in school, because commas are as rare as spotted owls in this movie. Not to mention the content of said independent clauses: “But I love you.” “The wolf is here.” “I’m not leaving.” “I’m not the wolf.” Any variation of those four sentences made up 80 percent of the script. And the rest was probably screaming.
There was one fight scene in this movie. Count it: one. And I would take the fight choreographer, if they bothered to hire one, out to be executed with the scriptwriters. It was that terrible. Of course it was three guys beating the crap out of another guy, but it still looked like stuntmen practicing for a Chuck Norris film. Now that takes some real effort to mess up..
You get the gist. Technically speaking, this movie was disaster. Let’s talk about the plot.
The Predictability Factor. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and are afraid of hearing spoilers, read no further. Conversely, if you can’t guess who the wolf is after the first quarter of the movie by yourself anyway, maybe you deserve to hear the “plot twist”, if any self-respecting movie critic can call it that.
There are some basic assumptions you can make whenever you walk into a movie where the final “mystery” remains hidden and you, the audience, are compelled to suspect and theorize until your face turns blue. Because the moviemakers presumably know that you are trying to guess, they make it a point to have you suspect, suspect, suspect and then BAM! You didn’t guess it was going to be THIS guy, did you? Ahhaha.
No. There’s a way around that. First you have to recognize that you’re sitting in this type of movie and then, if you know the slightest thing about typical plot devices (and this movie was the benchmark for typical) you can guess the “twist” within minutes, without fail.
Break it down. In the original story, you have Little Red Riding Hood, the Grandma, and the Wolf. Who are we missing? Why the Woodcutter, of course. No-one thinks of him, generally.
So now we have to determine which character is the woodcutter. The most confounding element here, and in the whole movie for that matter, was that the main love interest, Peter, is a woodcutter, and Valerie’s Dad is also a woodcutter. So you have to determine which one is THE woodcutter. This doesn’t take long. Plus, why would this director toss off the perfectly-gelled, broodingly handsome hero with the giant forehead? Oh no no. It can’t be done.
Next, it’s power of elimination. Oh no, there’s a wolf! Oh no, it’s a werewolf! OH NO it’s someone in this village! Whodunnit? Start guessing.
Rule number one for guesswork is that unless the director and writers are especially clever, and these are certainly not, the main character never suspects the actual baddie. Oh, she suspects, Peter. He’s out. She suspects the Grandma, and the priest, and Henry. None of them are the wolf, clearly. Anyone she even thorws a sideways suspicious glance at is officially safe.
This leaves literally, one person. Not to mention that this person was given both exposition and motive in the first sixteen seconds of the plot. I mean, that’s unimportant right? Of course.
I’m not saying that if you couldn’t figure out who the wolf was right off that you’re an idiot. Just that you might want to consider not having babies.
To conclude, if you watched this movie with your critical hat on and you somehow came out liking it, then you have serious delusional issues and should consider seeing a shrink.
A shrink who is nicer than me, preferably.
