So you think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Don’t be too sure. . . . One of your favorite fairy tales is turned upside-down and inside-out in what the L.A. Times called "high-energy, imaginative entertainment." With irreverent storytelling, spunk and wit, Hoodwinked delivers a comedy caper for the young, the young at heart and everyone in between. When the police arrive at Granny’s cottage in the woods to answer a domestic disturbance call, it looks like just another open-and-shut case. But Red, Granny, the Big Bad Wolf and the Woodsman are not your usual suspects, as they have their own dark secrets, wily deceptions and conflicting accounts of the crime. Together, they must put aside their differences and find their own original twist on Happily Ever After in this "raucous, genre-busting, animated gem (Entertainment Weekly, The Must List)."
Hoodwinked fuses the classic fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood with the crisscrossing storylines of film noir--pretty ambitious stuff for a computer-animated cartoon. The police cordon off Grandma's cottage and an amphibious version of William Powell named Nicky Flippers (voiced by David Ogden Stiers, M*A*S*H) begins interrogating the suspects: A Little Red in bell-bottoms (Anne Hathaway, Ella Enchanted), a Wolf turned investigative journalist (Patrick Warburton, The Woman Chaser), a snow-boarding Granny (Glenn Close, 101 Dalmatians), and a dimwitted would-be Woodsman (Jim Belushi, Curly Sue), each of whom have very different reasons for ending up in that cottage living room. The visual style of Hoodwinked mixes a clunky, video-game look with an homage to the stop-motion puppetry of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and other Rankin-Bass holiday specials. While sometimes awkward, there are also moments of surreal beauty, such as when a depressed Red wanders through a field of blue and red flowers--and moments of lunatic comedy, such as the Schnitzel song, which is irresistibly bizarre. The Shrek-style pop-culture references grow annoying, but the left-field goofiness of a yodeling goat points toward a far more distinct and delightful comic world. Also featuring the voices of Anthony Anderson (Kangaroo Jack), rapper Xzibit, and an especially witty turn by Andy Dick (NewsRadio) as a deceptively cute bunny rabbit. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Rating:
Summary: Best kids movie out there, bar none.
Comment: This movie is the smartest, freshest and most all around entertaining movie in its class. Great story, great character development and great music make it a standout. It's got it all and tops my list of other fantastic kids movies such as Shrek, Toy Story, Jungle Book and Iron Giant.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredibly funny cartoon
Comment: HOODWINKED is proof that a cartoon does not have to have the best animation or even the best artwork to be truly excellent. Made by a pair of brothers no one has even heard of, Tom and Cory Edwards, and distributed by the Weinstein brothers of Miramax fame, HOODWINKED provides a new and very twisted take on the Little Red Riding Hood fable. The plot as such involves someone stealing pastry recipes and plays out like RASHOMON, in that it ends up being told from various participants' perspectives. While the execution of the cartoon leaves something to be desired -- this is no SHREK or ICE AGE or MONSTERS INC. or even ROBOTS -- the story is absolutely hilarious and the characters (voiced by Andy Dick, Puddy, Glenn Close and Anne Hathaway) are wonderfully fleshed out. Some of the dialog is to die for, and plays equally well to adults and children. Just as importantly, HOODWINKED is a full-blown musical, and the music is as every bit as good as the dialog. The highlight is a number sung by a cursed billy goat (don't ask) as he explains his curse to Red and then takes her on the ride of her life. Many movies are referenced in HOODWINKED, including XXX, THE MATRIX and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, and there is a bizarre extreme sports sequence involving Red's surprisingly athletic grandmother. Oh, and the Three Little Pigs make a guest appearance as three klutzy cops. Enjoy. I know I and my family sure did.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Love this movie!
Comment: Lots of action, humor, plot twists and fun. It's like a roller coaster ride. And the icing on the cake...it's a clean movie.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Wasn't expecting this...
Comment: Hoodwinked
After the success of Shrek and many Pixar films, it seemed like everyone was just throwing out any computer-animated movie they could make. None of them could capture the feeling Pixar and Shrek give to us. Oddly enough, Hoodwinked delivered on nearly every single level.

Hoodwinked is the retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. The movie starts off with the scene of Red going home to visit her grandmother only to find that the wolf has disguised himself as her grandmother. Then we see a tied up Grandma fall out of closet and a Woodsman break through the window. Next thing you know the cops show up and cool the situation down. The movie then enters an interrogation type mode in which they question Red, Wolf, Grandma, and the Woodsman. You soon learn that a goody thief is on the loose. The story revolves around trying to figure out who he or she is.

This story is extremely well done and enjoyable to watch. Hearing four different perspectives of what happened is very entertaining and gives a special feel to the story. It's obvious to anyone over ten to realize who the goody thief is by about the third story but that doesn't damper the story any.

The animation isn't the best out there, but it is pretty well done. I'm glad they focused more on the story instead of realism. Still, the animation isn't ugly by any means. You can still see every hair in Wolf. Other characters have good designs that make them different than every other character in this movie.

Extra are your standard deleted scenes, commentary track, and making of features. The deleted scenes are mostly just extended versions of musical parts of the movie. Other deleted scenes are drawn out pictures. This is pretty cool, but doesn't qualify as a great deleted scene to me. The commentary is pretty good and so is the making of.

Don't worry about this movie being too childish for you. My 50-year-old father was even laughing at it while we watched it. It has a very funny story with not too many musical scenes to slow you down. I would recommend that anyone of any age pick up this wonderful movie.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great movie!
Comment: We love this movie. I have 2 kids, ages 11 and 12 and the four of us (my husband also) enjoyed it very much. It definitely has a unique style of humor to it, and you have to be the type of person that appreciates this type of satirical writing, otherwise you'll think it's weird. The humor is older, though, making this definitely NOT a young kids movie.

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