hoodwinked

The Nova Bastille library showed “Hoodwinked” Monday afternoon as the first installment of its summer movie program.

 

Rachel was a little disappointed they had picked it for their first movie, since they had showed it last summer too, but it’s a good movie. It gives a humorous treatment to the popular Red Riding Hood fairy tale, by telling and retelling the story from the point of view of each major character: Red herself, the Big Bad Wolf, Granny, and even the woodcutter.

 

As a bonus, none of the characters is quite what you’d expect from the fairy tale as the Brothers Grimm popularized it, and the entire story takes place against the backdrop of corporate espionage under investigation by both the police and an investigate journalist who is played by one of the main characters.

 

Natasha saw a preview for the movie and disparaged it as something that wanted to be “Shrek” but couldn’t manage it. For myself, I loved the movie both times. I thought it was witty in the extreme, presents a strong female character in Red Riding Hood, and manages to go the entire movie without relying on potty humor or pretending to be deep, like “Shrek” did.

 

I also recognized the voices of John Belushi and Anne Hathaway ― not marquee stars, I suppose, but still fairly impressive for what I believe was an independent film effort.

 

Evangeline also was disappointed that they showed “Hoodwinked” again this year. She was at art camp, and would have loved to have seen the movie a second time. She immediately got on my case to buy a copy so she can watch it “lots of times.”

 

And that, of course, is why the good Lord invented allowance.