Hoodwinked!
Grade: B-
Hoodwinked! contains enough laughs and clever narration to transcend its cheap animation budget, but it isn’t entirely funny or smart enough to remain all that memorable. A few more notes on Hoodwinked!:
- Directing – Creating an independently financed computer-animation movie is an impressive feat by itself, but Hoodwinked! ultimately suffers from its substandard and sometimes offputting visual effects — writer/director Cory Edwards is unable to imbue his characters with perceptible emotion simply because he doesn’t have the available tools to do so.
- Acting – Hoodwinked’s budget went toward the talented voice cast, and it shows — Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, David Ogden Stiers and Patrick Warburton do a great job keeping us invested in the story even though the characters often look like Legos.
- Writing – A fairy tale parody (clearly inspired by Shrek) and a non-linear narrative (clearly inspired by Rashomon) help make Hoodwinked a worthwhile satire, yet the one-dimensional characters and reliance on gimmick leaves the story with no purpose other than to provide us with some jokes (luckily, some of the jokes are pretty good).
- Music – Once again taking influence from Shrek with a pop/rock soundtrack, but instead of identifiable singalong anthems, Hoodwinked opts for original (i.e., unmemorable) songs by co-writer Todd Edwards. Then again, the best joke of the entire movie is the Appalachian mountain goat tune.
- Ending (SPOILERS) – The ending of Hoodwinked! shamelessly sets up a sequel for characters we stopped caring for 15 minutes earlier. Surprisingly, a sequel called Hoodwinked Too was actually released in 2011. Unsurprisingly, it bombed at the box office.
- Quote – “What can I say? I was raised by wolves.” — Wolf W. Wolf
“Hoodwinked!” (2006)