Johnny Major
Posts: 5
Joined: 26/4/2011
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Caution: This review contains spoilers.
Grandma, what big teeth you have. All the better to nibble you gently with my dear. If there is one thing this dark twist on a classic fairy tale is missing, it’s bite.
I hurried down to my local cinema last Wednesday night, itching with anticipation at being plunged into the depths of a haunted world that would leave me terrified of the big, bad wolf. I was expecting to leave an hour and forty minutes later, looking over my shoulder for the prowling beast ready to pounce out of the shadows at any moment. Instead I found myself making my way back to my car stung by the bitter taste of mild disappointment.
Like so many other Hollywood releases that exhibit great potential, Red Riding Hood’s principal downfall is in its basic story structure. Primarily a ‘your enemy is amongst you’ thriller, Red Riding Hood brings the well-known children’s tale out of its bubble of picking flowers and skipping to grandma’s and into a gritty world of wicked betrayal and gruesome murder, aimed at adult audiences. Unfortunately, the tantalising ‘trust no one’ elements of the story have the life sucked out of them by hollow, romantic subplots between the two-dimensional main characters.
The film begins well, rapidly establishing an isolated village that is plagued by a werewolf and the love interest between Valerie, a.k.a. Red Riding Hood, played by Amanda Seyfried, and Peter, the lumberjack, portrayed by Shiloh Fernandez. Upon learning that she has been betrothed to the wealthy, young suitor Henry Lazar (Max Irons), Valerie plans to run away with Peter. However, their plan is quickly foiled by the re-emergence of the werewolf and the brutal murder of Valerie’s sister. The villagers are quick to launch a hunting party to slay the werewolf, returning with its head on a pike. The people rejoice in the defeat of the monster that has terrorised their village only to have their celebrations interrupted by the arrival of Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), a seasoned werewolf hunter, who attempts to convince the village folk that the head they bear on the pike is no more than that of a common, grey wolf.
The film reaches its high point here, about a third of the way through, as the werewolf brings the festivities to a gory end with its most bloodthirsty killing spree yet. After the villagers flee the wolf in an enthralling, edge of your seat chase through the village’s dark alleyways, they are quick to take heed of Father Solomon’s words and accept the grisly truth that not only is the werewolf still very much alive but in fact walks amongst them. The story maintains an absorbing pace as a tumult of distrust and accusations grips the village. Sadly, the film looses all momentum as its most dynamic elements are swiftly drowned in a tiresome sea of longing looks and unrequited love.
The audience tries desperately to cling on to the threads of suspicion, attempting to determine the wolf from the likely suspects. Though interest in the wolf’s true identity becomes increasing difficult to maintain when you are constantly bombarded with insipid displays of affection. The Valerie, Peter, Henry love triangle is inundated with the clichés of whispering sweet nothings, confused feelings, selfless acts of love and inevitable reconcilements. By the end of the film you are less interested in the identity of the wolf than you are in escaping the discomfort of cinema seating and restoring feeling to your rear end.
Red Riding Hood certainly looses its edge of tension due to its central focus residing with romance, though when considering the talent attached to the project it is perhaps unsurprising that the film should have taken this direction. Catherine Hardwicke, famous for directing the immensely successful Twilight (2008), headed the production of Red Riding Hood as director. Hardwicke has a real talent for creating engrossing, enchanted worlds brimming with misty forests and mythical beasts, a talent that is exemplified by both Red Riding Hood and Twilight. However, Hardwicke has a tendency to laden her films with overbearing, romantic scenes of intense heavy breathing and melodramatic declarations of all conquering love. Such scenes are at home in films like Twilight, which are aimed at younger, female audiences who are beguiled by extremely attractive vampires spilling their deepest affections for human females. But in films like Red Riding Hood, which are aimed at mature audiences with their gritty stories and coarse imagery, such scenes are cumbersome and detract from the more thrilling elements of betrayal, mistrust and deception.
With that said, Red Riding Hood did exhibit many enjoyable features. Aside from the worn love triangle, the story possessed some engaging aspects, in particularly the tensions of doubt and suspicion amongst the villagers. The visuals were stunning, taking you on a visual feast through twisted woods, ghostly caves, eerie villages and snow-covered plains. The minimal costume design was exceedingly powerful, with Valerie’s scarlet cape drawing your attention against the earthy backdrops. In addition to this, Amanda Seyfried gave an excellent performance as Valerie, portraying her as a wide-eyed, vulnerable, terror-struck victim when in the shadow of the snarling wolf.
Red Riding Hood is the first to come in a line of classical fairy tales to be retold in a sinister light, with Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and Snow White and the Huntsman set for release in 2012. I look forward to seeing these films in the hope that they will achieve the dark, magical ambience of Red Riding Hood without the humdrum love plot. With some luck I’ll be scrambling back to the safety of my car checking over my shoulder for wicked witches and evil queens, not a care in the world for how numb my bum is.
Summary: Red Riding Hood is visually captivating and brings the timeless fairy tale into darker waters. If it had only shed its clichéd, romantic focus in favour of its more thrilling elements it may well have been a classic in its own right.
Overall Score: 6/10
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