Toon Talk - From the Other Side: Hoodwinked
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As is typical of all of these modernized “fractured fairy tales�?, the characters as presented are not just the one-dimensional “types�? of their inspiration; no, just a sweet little girl and her kindly grandmother won’t do, they also have to be able to kick bad guy behind like a Charlie’s Angel and eXtreme skateboard like Tony Hawk, respectively. No longer the ignorant waif who can’t spy a wolf in grandma’s clothing, Red is an independent young woman who yearns to become a part of the “Great Big World�? (her peppy, Beach Boys-flavored “I want�? song); with her droll, no-nonsense attitude and plasticized hair, she’s an unlikely offspring of Christina Ricci and Bob’s Big Boy. Of the zoo-full of added critters, the stand outs are a hyper squirrel named Twitchy (voiced by co-creator Cory Edwards), he of the Scrat School of Scene-Stealers, and Boingo the Bunny (Andy Dick), whose involvement in the shenanigans belies his innocent cute animal sidekick appearance.
If take-offs on Matrix fight scenes and Mountain Dew commercials sound a little stale to you, you are absolutely right. In the same vein are riffs on everything from Quentin Tarantino’s slow-mo stylings to the big “villain-explains-his-nefarious-plot-through-song�? musical number. Speaking of songs, the Woodsman’s “Schnitzel Song,�? yodeled by him to a gaggle of Augustus Gloopian children, is a campy hoot, while the sad song for Red is as obvious as its title: “Red is Blue�?; the remainder of the score is a cacophony of wannabe hipness.
(c) The Weinsten Co.
With a crime caper plot and raucous tone, Hoodwinked is reminiscent of an earlier groundbreaker in computer-assisted animation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (even their title logos are similar). However, employing computer animation that is impossible to ignore as anything but computer animation, the picture fails on many levels visually. Composition is off, lighting is lazy; in sequences with multiple elements, each individual moving object floats in its own space, disconnected from the surroundings.
Yep, you’ll feel like its 1989 all over again with the Legend of Zelda video game-like graphics - so much so that every movie theater showing this film should equip each seat with its own joystick, right next to the cup holder for your eXtra large Mountain Dew.
Toon Talk Rating: C
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In this ‘Toon Talk’ feature, I’ll briefly highlight a recommended film or DVD, outside of the Disney universe, of similar interest to the main subject. Multi-tiered Mystery Movie Hoodwinked is just the latest in a long line of films that have “borrowed�? from Akira Kurosawa’s cinematic classic Rashomon (1950, RKO). So many other (lesser) movies have copied the structure of telling the same story from multiple viewpoints that the phrase “Rashomon-like�? is as common a film theorists’ term as “Hitchcockian�? or “Capraesque�?. The film is set in ancient Japan, where a woman is assaulted and her husband killed. Each of four defendants gives us their own version of the incident, each story revealing a little more detail. Which version - if any - is the real truth about what happened? Stars Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo and Masayuki Mori. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film, 1951. DVD available from The Criterion Collection. |
Coming Soon in Toon Talk:
- The latest Disney based-on-fact sports drama finds Josh Lucas leading the first all-black basketball team to the national championship in Glory Road (January 13).
- “See Bambi grow�? … 64 years (!) after the original: Bambi II arrives February 7.
- Curious George jumps out of the storybooks and onto the big screen in a new animated adventure (Universal, February 10).
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-- Kirby C. Holt
-- Logo by William C Searcy, Magic Bear Graphics
Kirby is a lifelong Disney fan and film buff. He is also an avid list maker and chronic ellipsis user ...
Took Talk: Disney Film & Video Reviews by Kirby C. Holt is posted whenever there's something new to review.
The opinions expressed by our Kirby C. Holt, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted January 13, 2006