There’s also a terrible feature on “Red’s Men” that exists simply to talk about how “hot” the two guys in her love triangle are. They refer to their own film as a “bold new landmark of storytelling” in regards to the werewolves, which I find a little ridiculous, but it’s still an interesting feature. There is a feature called “Reinvention of Red Riding Hood,” that explores the history of the original story. Despite my thoughts on the film itself, I love seeing the filmmakers get to analyze their own work, and this is something any fan of the film will enjoy.Īs far as bonus features outside of the film, there is plenty of material there as well. Featuring the actors and filmmakers, this provides a lot of insight into the entire process and even includes a lot of storyboards, concept art, etc. Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of Blu-Rays that seem to have phoned in the extras, and it was nice seeing a release that really embraced the features that Blu-Ray can provide.įor starters, the theatrical version of the film can be watched in a feature called “Secrets Behind the Red Cloak.” This is a picture-in-picture commentary track that runs the entire length of the film.
Despite that, they have released a pretty fantastic Blu-Ray that is probably the best a film like this could have to offer. While the studio was obviously desperate for a Twilight-style hit, the film never reached the commercial success they were going for. A CGI creation that I’d be hard pressed to call mediocre, I never believed there was an actual creature anywhere on set. Unfortunately, the wolf doesn’t look nearly as good as the village. Nestled in the woods, near the river that leads to Grandmother’s house, the village looks magical. The production design is beautiful, and while I wish the film had a larger scale to it, what we get is purely fairytale. Some of the action is actually quite well staged in these sequences, and considering how poorly Hardwicke did on Twilight, I was pretty impressed with the look of the film overall.ĭaggerhorn looks like a village out of a storybook. For some reason, however, Valerie’s older sister is killed by the wolf, violating the truce, and instigating a wolfhunt that ends up costing several villagers their lives. They offer a sacrifice in exchange for the safety of the village. There are a lot of red herrings thrown at the audience, but I have to admit that I did kind of enjoy the way that story played out.ĭaggerhorn, the village where the film takes place, has had a truce with the wolf for several years. Beyond the impossible decision of which guy she’ll pick, the main drama of the film is the mystery regarding the identity of the wolf.
Complicating matters is the presence of the “big bad wolf,” which in this version of the story is, of course, a werewolf. This may be the only literal connection between the films (other than some Twilight actors playing a role or two), but when watching the film, I just couldn’t get the similarities out of my mind.Īmanda Seyfried plays Valerie, or Red Riding Hood, as a young woman caught between the “bad boy” she loves and the man she’s assigned to marry. But when the studio elected to have Catherine Hardwicke, director of the first (and arguably worst) of the Twilight franchise, direct this film as well, one can’t help but compare. It might seem like I’m harping a little too much on Twilight in a review for a film based on Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately, they took the classic story and “Twilighted” it, adding in a ridiculous love triangle, and oh so much teenage angst. That’s all well and good when the source material is suited for that demographic, but with something like Red Riding Hood, a classic piece of folklore, I would expect more from the studio adapting it. After the success of Twilight, it seems almost impossible to escape the avalanche of movies going for that lucrative teenage girl audience.
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