‘Red Riding Hood’ Review: Wait, Are You Sure I’m Not Watching ‘Twilight?’

The very first scenes of Red Riding Hood are composed of long establishing shots of mist covered, sweeping evergreen forests. This is only the beginning of a long string of relentless Twilight-vibes you will get from Red Riding Hood, the latest flick from director Catherine Hardwicke.

Why does this not surprise me? Well, for those of you who don’t know, Hardwicke is the person who launched the Twilight film franchise by directing the first film back in 2008. It looks like Hardwicke doesn’t seem to want to let go and pretty much directs Red Riding Hood as a carbon copy of the vampire story that is so popular with tweens the world over. Maybe Hardwicke lacks imagination, maybe she’s just lazy — either way, Red Riding Hood is one big mess.

Poster courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

The visual style reflects the foreboding atmosphere of the story. Saturated in blue-grey undertones with every shot filmed in a face-flattering soft light, the film is set in a sleepy, medieval English village – even though no one has an English accent. Amanda Seyfried is the protagonist Valerie, stealing all the attention in every shot not because her acting is great, but because she sticks out like a sore thumb amongst a village full of dark haired people with her too-blonde hair and too-big, blue eyes. She is obviously the most attractive girl in the village, stuck in the middle of an Edward-Jacob love triangle between Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) the bad boy, and Henry (Max Irons) to whom Valerie is betrothed. Both of them vie for her attention with their bad acting and monotone line delivery, all the while smoldering handsomely in each shot and swapping tepid insults with each other. Like their Twilight counterparts, neither of them can act worth their life, but at least they’re pretty to look at. Interweaved with the love drama, is the threat of a werewolf attack, and a mystery concerning the identity behind the menacing creature. The villagers hire Father Soloman (Gary Oldman) to kill the werewolf, but he instills fear in the people instead.

This film is a ridiculous story told poorly. It tries way too hard to come off as serious, and becomes hilarious instead. There was uncontrollable laughter throughout the theater during Valerie’s first encounter with the wolf, a pretty crucial scene that was supposed to hint at Valerie’s darker side. It was handled so poorly that the only reaction was to laugh because it was better than cringing. The stupidity continues with ridiculous plot devices that include Father Soloman’s torture device, a giant, hollow tin elephant and Valerie communicating telepathically with the wolf. Yes, you read that correctly.

Not even the action scenes could redeem the movie. Usually some mindless fighting is fun to watch but they couldn’t even get that right. It was shaky, blurry, hard to follow and horribly choreographed. Other points of irritation include the horrible set design that looks like it came straight from a cheap back lot studio, shoddily constructed and plied with fake snow. The costumes aren’t any better – I could get probably get the same thing from a Halloween costume store for thirty bucks. The whole film is also art-directed to death, with way too many intense close-ups of eyes and in-your-face images of Valerie wearing the red-cape running through the untouched white snow with Peter. Even the musical score is problematic, a strange mix of booming classical music with thudding basses to modern metal songs screaming with angst-filled lyrics that make no sense in a medieval setting.

The acting is equally as bad as the direction and set production. Granted, the actors didn’t have a whole lot to work with since the script was mediocre at best and the lines stilted. Amanda Seyfried draws your attention, if only because her eyes look ready to pop out of her head from her trying to look petrified when she’s talking to the wolf. Gary Oldman puts in one of his worst performances ever, basically walking around shouting a lot and generally being annoying throughout the whole film (“That is not the werewolf, it is a common grey wolf!”) The two young male lead’s acting is as stiff as their hair, and the Twilight-ness continues with Billy Burke who plays Valerie’s dad, and who also happens to play Bella’s dad in Twilight. His acting is terrible in both.

Red Riding Hood basically failed in all aspects of film making. Its rating-conscious nature doesn’t allow the film to fully explore the darker, more violent side of the original fairytale, which defeats the purpose of an adult reinvention of the Brothers Grimm tale. It is an awkwardly preposterous film weighed down by shoddy production, clumsy direction and horrible acting. It’s basically a knock-off of Twilight. A film doesn’t get much worse than that.

If I wanted to watch Twilight, I would’ve watched Twilight. Red Riding Hood is a carbon copy of the tween vampire flick, and it pretty much fails in all respects. You might want to stay away from this one, folks: F

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