Fun Fact: Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf Are Detectives

Hoodwinked was released in 2006 (despite what Google says, but it was only released in Los Angeles in December 2005, and everywhere else in January 2006). Immediately obvious is its extremely creepy animation. Characters are waxy and clunky, despite the known technologies for animation at the time. The budget was only $8 million, and an inexperienced animation team was used on a tight timeline (I’ll allow it).

Now that we’ve got it out of the way that the film is creepy to start with, you’d think it would continue to be creepy and scary, but past the first five minutes, it’s really not. Certainly, it makes you nervous, but it doesn’t really jump to scare you. Hoodwinked can best be described as punny. The comedy of the film is based on metaphors, turns of phrases, callbacks, and puns, not necessarily setups and punchlines. The convergence of the storylines at key points really tie the movie together, not just for plot purposes, but also for the comedy (see: Granny in the sky, The Wolf dressed in a sheep’s coat to blend in with the flock, the avalanche on the mountain; or, my personal favorite: “I built my house out of straw, I’m not stupid.”).

Little Red Riding Hood, the classic fairytale depicting a little girl discovering her grandmother has been replaced by a wolf trying to eat her, is twisted in this movie to a criminal investigation in the forest where the main character, Red (Anne Hathaway), lives as she delivers baked goods for her Grandma Puckett (Glenn Close) across the forest. When she discovers The Big Bad Wolf (A.K.A. Wolf W. Wolf) (Patrick Warburton) in her Granny’s bed, she’s terrified and convinced he’s there to steal her Granny’s recipes. You see, Granny Puckett runs a successful business—a bakery—that serves all the critters in the forest and has for generations. 

However, she’s one of many bakeries in the forest, and recently other places have been going out of business at record speed (though that may be due to the fact they’re all right next to each other, but who’s to say?). The cause? An unknown assailant has been breaking into places of business and stealing recipe books, leaving bakers/business owners scrambling. Because of this, Red keeps Granny’s recipes close to her chest, with her at all times. When she sees Wolf in her granny’s clothes, she’s immediately convinced that he is the thief.

However, when woodsman Kirk (Jim Belushi) bursts through the window at the height of the standoff between Red and Wolf, the situation gets more confusing, and the cops are called. What ensues is a hilarious yet clever mix of storylines that must be analyzed to get to the bottom of the story to see who’s really stealing the recipes, and why.

We start off with Red’s perspective, following her throughout her day, exploring her feelings towards being a delivery girl, her dreams outside of the forest, her concern for her grandma as she gets closer to her house, and her fear of Wolf.

We then follow Wolf through his account of his day, hilariously stalking Red on his suspicion that she and Grandma Puckett are working together to steal all the recipes. 

We finish with Kirk’s account of his day and everything that leads him to crashing through the window of Grandma Puckett’s home, interrupting a confrontation and investigation. 

Once their accounts are over, the stories are tied together, and Red, Wolf, and Kirk are thrown into the investigation even further as they draw parallels in each other’s stories.

Overall, Hoodwinked stands the test of time for being such a stupid movie. The jokes are juvenile yet dry and are not begging to be laughed at. The animation actually plays quite a role in making you scared at different parts, simply because the characters themselves look scary. It almost looks like they’re dolls that came to life and are still learning how to move freely. I think my favorite part of this movie is how it all comes together in the end, and how you watch the storylines interact and align at different points, revealing the real villain but never giving any clues until the end. 

Although I’m not quite sure why, Hoodwinked did, in fact, earn a sequel, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, released in 2011, with improved animation and a higher-stakes plot. I have no plans to watch this sequel, so I’ll settle for rating the original a 3.5 on Letterboxd and call it a day.