Hoodwinked

Last night I went to see Hoodwinked, and I thought it was boring. I liked the premise of the movie, and I was looking forward to seeing it, and then it wasn't what I expected. My first thoughts were that it just wasn't that funny, but I don't know that fairy tales are supposed to be funny.

Right now I'm reading Stephen Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You and in it he says "Much has been written bout the dexterity with which the creators of these recent films [cartoons for children] build distinct layers of information into their plots, dialogues, and visual effects, creating a kind of hybrid form that dazzles children without boring grownups." And I realized that this was my problem with the movie.

The premise of Hoodwinked is that there is always more than one side to the story, so we get the story of Little Red Riding Hood from 4 perspectives trying to figure out who the real bad guy is. This sounds like it will have some layers of information. It looks like it will require the audience to do a little problem solving. And it does. But the key word is little. It's obvious pretty early on who the real bad guy is-- of course it can't be the wolf--that wouldn't be original. It can't be the little girl-- that would go against the audience. It can't be the Granny because that would upset the political correctness of the film. So, that leaves the woodsman or an outside character.

I know that Hoodwinked is aimed at a child audience vs. an adult audience, but that doesn't mean that the movie needs to be so simple that adults are bored. Toy Story and Finding Nemo remain appropriate for children but still use cultural references that make the story more entertaining for adults. Hoodwinked has some of that-- when the wolf is talking to the evil character, he makes a few references to typical evil characters-- but they are all stereotypical aspects that any child would understand from watching any Saturday morning cartoons.

Children's literature is trying to break stereotypes. Children's film and video games is striving to adhere to the multi-layered narrative that our culture now appreciates. So, I'm disappointed when movies like Hoodwinked come out, because I feel that it falls short of what it could have done.