From the director who brought you “Twilight“, we now have a new saga called “Red Ridding Hood”. Cynthia and I adore “Twilight”, despite what the critics said. I was so excited in booking the tickets online so much so that I booked yesterday’s session, instead of today’s. So, we had an early weekend celebration.
There are striking similarities between “Twilight” and “Red Ridding Hood”. The narration, the rather helpless leading female actress, and even the fathers of Valerie of “Red Ridding Hood” and Bella of “Twilight” are acted by the same person. There are werewolves in “Hood”, but there is no vampires (yet?) In “Twilight”, we see Bella falling in love while in “Hood”, Valerie has already fallen in love since the beginning. Hence, in a way, “Hood” is more a suspense type of movie than a romance type drawing us to the center of the plot: Who and where is the big bad wolf? Looking from that perspective, the story is full of twists. It got me hooked all the way to the end guessing who is what and with what motive. The two opposing forces appear to be well matched. At some point, I really had no idea which way the story would go. Gary Oldman plays the Witchfinder General who takes over the village and volunteers to hunt the big bad wolf. I love his acting (since the Fifth Element days). And you may think, how cool if he is a big bad vampire eh?
Amanda Seyfried is beautiful. She is perfect for this role. I cannot say much about the two boys who are suppose to romance her. The chemistry seems missing. Perhaps since the part on falling in love is not there, there is hardly any opportunity for relationship development. If there is a sequel (sure hope there is), I bet these boys could be replaced with someone more suitable for Amanda.