| Hoodwinked! | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Cory Edwards Todd Edwards Tony Leech |
| Produced by | Maurice Kanbar David K. Lovegren Sue Bea Montgomery Preston Stutzman |
| Screenplay by | Cory Edwards Todd Edwards Tony Leech |
| Story by | Cory Edwards Todd Edwards |
| Starring | Anne Hathaway Glenn Close Jim Belushi Patrick Warburton David Ogden Stiers Andy Dick |
| Music by | John Mark Painter Kristin Wilkinson |
| Editing by | Tony Leech |
| Studio | Kanbar Entertainment Kanbar Animation Blue Yonder Films Narfia Entertainment Group (Uncredited) |
| Distributed by | The Weinstein Company |
| Release date(s) | December 16, 2005 (Los Angeles, California) January 13, 2006[1] |
| Running time | 80 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15 million[2] |
| Box office | $110,013,167[3] |
Hoodwinked!, also titled Hoodwinked on its theatrical poster and in other sources, is a 2005 American computer-animated family action comedy film, produced by Blue Yonder Films with Kanbar Entertainment, directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, Tony Leech, and produced by Maurice Kanbar, David K. Lovegren, Sue Bea Montgomery, and Preston Stutzman. The film was released by the Weinstein Company in Los Angeles, CA on December 16, 2005 for a one week engagement to qualify for any Oscar nominations,[4] before expanding nationwide in the USA on January 13, 2006.[1]
It stars the voices of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Andy Dick, David Ogden Stiers, Xzibit, Anthony Anderson, Chazz Palminteri, and Cory Edwards.[5]
Based on the Little Red Riding Hood folktale, structurally, it borrows from Rashomon and The Usual Suspects, as well as frequently intertwining various plots. It is 80 minutes long and is rated PG in the US for mild action and thematic elements.
A sequel called Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil was released on April 29, 2011.[6]
Contents |
The movie opens in medias res as Little Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway) discovers that the Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) has disguised himself as Granny (Glenn Close), just as the ax-wielding woodsman (Jim Belushi) bursts through the window and startles everyone, which makes them all scream in terror. The police quickly arrive, and led by detective Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), Red, Wolf, Granny, and the Woodsman are all questioned about the events leading up to the incident. Flippers realizes that all four are innocent and learns the true story behind the events: Red is trying to protect her granny's recipe book from the Goody Bandit (a thief that steals goodie recipies), but ends up meeting the Wolf, an investigative journalist also tracking down thefts by the Goody Bandit with his hyperactive photographer squirrel companion Twitchy Squirrel (Cory Edwards).
The Wolf is suspicious of Red and encounters her, but Wolf's tail gets caught in Twitchy's camera and screams right in Red's face, making Red scream and run away. However, when she encounters him again, she sprays him with a can of Wolf Away and beats him up, using her Kung Fu skills. Red flees into the mountains, where she finds help from a singing mountain goat named Japeth (Benjy Gaither).
Meanwhile, Granny, a successful goodie maker leading a double-life as extreme sports athlete called Triple-G, is on her way to the Xtreme Dream Snowsports Competition, but finds that a European ski team called the Evil Ski Team is playing dirty and trying to disable Granny. Granny learns from the leader of the gang, Dolph (Tye Edwards), that the Goody Bandit hired them to take out Granny. Granny avoids them by using grenades to cause an avalanche. The avalanche is seen by Red, Japeth, Wolf, and Twitchy.
Japeth begins singing his "Avalanche" song after his "Be Prepared" song. Granny "wins the ski race by a landslide" (as said in the news) and escapes the avalanche by deploying a parachute to parasail towards home. At the same time, Red and Japeth try to get to Granny's house on a minecart, but Twitchy accidentally lights a stick of dynamite (which he thought was a candle) while Wolf and he are also trying to get to Granny's in a mountain railway car further down the track. As Wolf throws the sticks of dynamite out of the cart, they destroy the railway, making Red's cart leave the track. Red, as she's falling, sees Granny (believing her to be a vision, but in reality, Granny's still on her parachute), who tells her granddaughter to use her hood as a parachute to safely land, and Red does so.
Wolf and Twitchy manage to make it to Granny's house before Red. Granny, as she tries to land in the house through her chimney, finds herself entangled in the parachute's drawstrings due to the strings getting caught in her ceiling fan, and lands in her closet, ensnared by ropes. Wolf quickly dons a Granny Puckett disguise before Red arrives in order to try to apprehend her. Simultaneous to these events, Kirk the Woodsman (Jim Belushi), a bad actor, is selling schnitzel on a stick to children in his schnitzel truck, but becomes victim to a robbery by the Goody Bandit. When he receives a callback by the studio's director Jimmy Lizard (Joshua J. Greene), he learns that they're looking for him to try again for the part of the Paul's Bunion Cream Woodsman; so, Kirk practices by chopping down trees, accidentally making one nearly run him over as it falls, making him jump through Granny's window to get away safely, just as Red discovers the Wolf.
Flippers recognizes that the only commonality to these events was a bunny named Boingo (Andy Dick) and the gang realizes that Boingo was the bandit the whole time, and they never knew about it. Red, who is despondent upon learning of her granny's double-life and ran away from home, is all alone and follows Boingo (who was wearing Red's hood and had Granny's recipe book) up to his mountain hideout by climbing onto his cable car, and tries to confront him about his thefts, but he orders the Evil Ski Team (who are revealed to be Boingo's henchmen) to capture Red.
Boingo then reveals his true colors to Red: To use the goodies he and his ski team stole to create a snack franchise; as they sell the snacks, they would add a single ingredient called Boingonium in every single one, which would make the customers become addicted to the snacks. This, in turn, would bring more revenue for Boingo and his henchmen, who then use the money to finance a demoliton against the forest and mountains to extend his business operations further to take control of the land. Granny, Wolf, and Kirk send Twitchy down the mountain to alert the cops of Boingo's hideout before heading up there on their own, where they use their special talents to overcome the henchmen. Boingo, however, sends a bound and gagged Red down the mountain in a cable car filled with explosives, and Granny slides down after her on a muffin pan. She manages to catch up to the car and frees Red before disconnecting it from the cable. It falls into the river below and explodes. The two are then approached by Boingo and the ski team, who are pursuing them on snowboards; however, Red and Granny use their hoods as parachutes to escape them, like Red had to avoid crashing in the mine cart earlier in the movie. The ski team ends up landing inside a police car, thanks to Twitchy's warnings. Granny and Red reconcile, with Red forgiving her and Granny learning to give Red more freedom, and Wolf and Kirk arrive with Granny's recovered recipe book.
The next day, Nicky Flippers tells Red, Granny, Wolf, and Twitchy (Kirk went on to become a world-famous yodeler alongside his favorite singing band the Happy Yodelers) that he's a member of the Happily Ever After Agency, and enlists the four to start a private agency with him, which they happily accept. Red then admits that she always did like happily ever afters, then puts on her hood and smiles at the camera.
Knowing that they couldn't match the quality of other CG animated movies (such as ones produced by Pixar), the film was instead designed to imitate the look of classic stop motion animated movies. On the DVD commentary, they cite the Rankin-Bass stop motion films as a source of inspiration for the movie's look.
The soundtrack by Todd Edwards and John Mark Painter was released with the film. Due to legal disputes, the CD wasn't available for about 4 years after the movie's release, but as of the end of 2009, it's for sale again.
Hoodwinked! was released in Los Angeles, CA on December 16, 2005, and then expanded nationwide in the United States on January 13, 2006.[7]
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $12,401,900 in 2,394 theaters in the United States ranking #3 at the box office, averaging $5,180 per venue. At the end of its theatrical run it had grossed a total of $110,011,106 worldwide — $51,386,611 in the United States and $58,624,495 in other territories.[8]
Critical reception has been mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, as of May 31, 2011, 47% of 123 critics gave the film positive reviews.[5] On Metacritic, it received a score of 45/100 ("mixed or average reviews").[9]
Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly called it "a wacked kiddie Rashomon in which the different versions dovetail with a logic as impeccable as it is flat-out buggy. So who do we root for? Everyone and no one. Hoodwinked's most radical feature is that it's a ride without heroes — unless, that is, you count the filmmakers, who could end up doing for independent animation what Soderbergh and Tarantino did for indie film: planting it on the map as a viable mass-culture form."[2]
On its 4-day opening weekend, the box office totaled up to $16,879,402. It has grossed $110,013,167 worldwide, including $51,386,611 in the United States.[3]
Hoodwinked! was released on DVD on May 2, 2006 and on Blu-ray and DVD on February 15, 2011. A twenty-two minute behind the scenes video podcast is available for free in iTunes.
A sequel, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, was released on April 29, 2011 to overwhelmingly negative reviews.[6]