“HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD vs. EVIL.” | Animated fairy tale
PG. 1 hour, 25 minutes. At area theaters.
“Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil” might have had a chance if its enormously talented voice cast had written it, too.
With Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Joan Cusack, Martin Short, Glenn Close and even Wayne Newton among those lending quite good voice work to the film, it’s a shame they couldn’t do more to help.
Instead, we have this movie, a computer-animated sequel to the mostly forgotten 2005 original. Six years later, the fractured fairy tale has returned — with less wit.
There was some madcap charm to the earlier “Hoodwinked!,” which reinterpreted the story of Red Riding Hood as a “Rashomon”-style detective story, unearthing an alibi for the wolf (Patrick Warburton) and a hereto unforeseen joie de vivre in Granny (Close).
But “Hoodwinked Too!” takes the same characters and casts them in an action-film plot. Red (Hayden Panettiere assuming Anne Hathaway’s role), Wolf, Twitchy and Granny are now special agents in the HEA: Happily Ever After Agency. The frame, though, is more “Mission: Impossible” than Brothers Grimm.
The film works best when it’s playful within a fairy tale world (as opposed to an action film world), like when agents storm a gingerbread house and rather than kicking down the door, eat it.
In his feature debut, director Mike Disa has unquestionably improved on the cheap-looking animation of the original. But the result is a more professional-looking film with less comedy.
