Psycho's Movie Reviews #110: Hoodwinked! (2005)

Hoodwinked! is a 2005 American computer-animated musical comedy mystery film. It retells the folktale Little Red Riding Hood as a police investigation, using backstories to show multiple characters' points of view. It was produced independently by Blue Yonder Films with Kanbar Entertainment, directed and written by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech, and produced by Katie Hooten, Maurice Kanbar, David K. Lovegren, Sue Bea Montgomery, and Preston Stutzman. The film was released by The Weinstein Company in Los Angeles, California, on December 16, 2005, for a one-week engagement before expanding nationwide on January 13, 2006. The film features the voices of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Patrick Warburton, Anthony Anderson, David Ogden Stiers, Xzibit, Chazz Palminteri and Andy Dick.

Hoodwinked! was among the earliest computer-animated films to be completely independently funded. Working apart from a major studio allowed the filmmakers greater creative control, but also restrained them economically. Due to the film's low budget, its animation was produced in the Philippines, with a less realistic design inspired by stop motion films. The Weinstein Company did not sign on as the film's distributor until near the end of production, and while the company had several roles recast with higher-profile actors, it otherwise made few changes to the film.

Structurally, the film was inspired by non-linear crime dramas such as Rashomon and Pulp Fiction. It was released in the wake of the first two instalments in the successful Shrek series, which accentuated the fairy tale parody genre of which Hoodwinked! is a part. Hoodwinked!, however, intentionally deviated from the Shrek series in its style of humour and in certain plot elements. This was in part based on Cory Edwards' concerns over exposing children to the high level of cynicism often found in the genre.

Critical reception to the film was varied; although its script and cast were praised by many reviews, its animation quality was heavily criticized. The film was a commercial success, earning over thirteen times its less-than-$8 million budget. A sequel, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, directed by Mike Disa, and written by the Edwards brothers and Leech, was released in 2011 to negative reviews and financial failure.

Plot

Little Red Riding Hood arrives at her grandmother's house, where the Big Bad Wolf has disguised himself as Red's Granny. The Wolf attacks Red. Granny, who has been tied up, suddenly jumps out of a nearby closet to help Red, just as an axe-wielding woodsman bursts through the window. The police arrive on the scene. Detective Nicky Flippers questions everyone involved about the events leading up to the incident.

Little Red, actually named Red Puckett, explains that she was delivering goodies for her grandmother, when she discovered a threat from the mysterious Goody Bandit, who has been stealing recipes. To save her Granny's business, Red embarked upon a journey to take the Puckett family recipes to Granny's home on top of a nearby mountain. En route, she fell out of a cable car operated by the bunny Boingo and encountered the Wolf, who sprung a series of suspicious questions on her. Evading the Wolf, Red then met an old singing goat named Japeth, who accompanied her through the remaining journey to Granny's house. Upon arriving at her destination, Red found the Wolf already waiting in ambush.

What at first seems to be an open-and-shut case becomes confused once the Wolf shares his side of the story. The Wolf, to the surprise of many at the crime scene, is an investigative reporter. He reveals that he was searching for a lead on the identity of the Goody Bandit and had reason to believe that Red and Granny were the culprits. Along with his hyperactive squirrel assistant Twitchy, the Wolf confronted Red in the hopes of solving the Goody Bandit mystery. When they failed to detain Red for long, the Wolf and Twitchy made haste for Granny's house. They managed to arrive ahead of Red (by using a shortcut known by Boingo). At the house, they found Granny already tied up in the closet. The Wolf then went undercover, planning to trick Red into sharing the truth about the Goody Bandit.

When the Woodsman, named Kirk, is questioned, he explains that his appearance at Granny's house was pure happenstance. Kirk is in fact an aspiring actor who was only trying out for the part of a woodsman in a commercial. After his schnitzel truck was robbed by the Goody Bandit, he was consoled by Boingo and then received a call-back for the commercial. He spent the rest of the day chopping trees, getting into character for his upcoming role. At sunset, a large tree collapsed and pushed him through the window of Granny's home.

The investigation then turns to Granny. Unbeknownst to her granddaughter, Granny is an extreme sports enthusiast. Earlier that day, she competed in a ski race, where Boingo was in attendance, supposedly as a fan of Granny's. Once the race started, Granny was attacked by the opposing team. Able to withstand the attack and win the race, she learned that the team had been hired by the Goody Bandit to eliminate her. Granny explains to the investigators and her fellow suspects that while parachuting back home, she got tangled up in the parachute strings, which snagged on her ceiling fan and threw her into the closet.

Feeling betrayed by Granny's secrecy, Red wanders off alone. Flippers deduces that Boingo, who had been present in all four stories, must be the Goody Bandit. After Boingo sneaks into Granny's home and steals the Puckett family recipes, Red notices Boingo and follows him to his hideout at a cable car station. The police pursue Boingo in the wrong direction. Granny, the Wolf, and Kirk manage to locate Boingo as he is explaining his evil scheme to Red. Boingo plans to add an addictive substance called "Boingonium" to the stolen recipes and then bulldoze the forest, so as to clear the way for a new Boingo-themed corporate empire.

The Wolf and Kirk go undercover to distract Boingo, as Granny sneaks into Boingo's lair, but they are all soon found out and open conflict ensues. Boingo sends a bound and gagged Red down the mountain in a cable car loaded with explosives. Granny goes after Red, with Boingo and his henchmen in pursuit. Red manages to free herself, and escapes with Granny, while the police, who have been redirected by Twitchy, are waiting at the bottom of the mountain to arrest Boingo and his henchmen.

Sometime later, Kirk finds success in a yodelling troupe, while Red, Granny, the Wolf, and Twitchy are enlisted by Flippers to join a crime-solving organization called the Happily Ever After Agency.

Production

Hoodwinked! was one of the first independent computer-animated films to be produced without the aid of a distributor. Although the film's budget is listed as $30 million on Box Office Mojo, several sources have rejected this figure, reporting that the film was produced for no more than $15 million. Director Cory Edwards explained in a 2009 interview that the film's actual budget was under $8 million. Any of these figures would be significantly lower than is typical for a computer-animated film's budget. At the time of Hoodwinked!'s production, the costs of computer-animation software had only recently decreased to a price that was accessible to more than just major studios, and leading up to the film's release, producer David Lovegren said, "Six or seven years ago, the idea of doing Hoodwinked! as an independent [animated] feature would have been impossible".

The filmmakers only made the film independently by necessity, and Cory Edwards has said, "It's not a model to be followed. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, seat-of-your-pants kind of thing that just barely came off." However, he added that the process was worth going through to get the film made, and encouraged aspiring filmmakers to be willing to follow it.

Development

After a number of years spent producing commercials and music videos in Tulsa, brothers Cory and Todd Edwards founded their own production company, Blue Yonder Films. Joined by their friend Preston Stutzman, who led marketing for the company, the group released their first feature film, Chillicothe, at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Emboldened by this success, the three then moved to Los Angeles in the hopes of producing a sophomore film. New opportunities however, proved elusive at first. An associate producer on Chillicothe, Sue Bea Montgomery, sought out studios that might want to work with the trio; she was met with indifference and determined that Blue Yonder Films would have to further establish itself on the independent scene before anyone would take interest. Montgomery then set up a meeting between the filmmakers and Maurice Kanbar, a successful entrepreneur who had made a minor investment in Chillicothe.

The Edwards brothers pitched a number of ideas for live-action films to Kanbar and proposed a development deal that would have entailed Kanbar paying the group and covering their rent in exchange for a significant portion of the rights to any scripts that Blue Yonder Films ever sold. Kanbar, however, was interested in a more direct approach, preferring to focus efforts on getting a single film produced. He had always admired animation, and after seeing a direct-to-DVD computer-animated short film that Cory had made called Wobots, suggested the possibility of producing an animated feature with Blue Yonder Films, one that would tell a familiar narrative with a twist. Kanbar gave the group a month to come up with a story idea.

Although Kanbar expressed interest in producing a retelling of Cinderella or Pinocchio, the Edwards brothers insisted on avoiding stories that had already been defined by Disney. Several ideas were considered by the brothers. Cory suggested Little Red Riding Hood, describing it as a story "so simple that you can go a lot of different directions with it", and within a few days, inspiration came to Todd through non-linear crime dramas, such as Rashomon, Pulp Fiction, Run Lola Run and Memento. Todd's proposal to retell Little Red Riding Hood as a police investigation, exploring the narrative through multiple points of view, was embraced by Kanbar, who agreed to fully finance the film before seeing a finished script. Kanbar's initial plan was to release the film directly to DVD.[10] In 2002, Kanbar and Montgomery joined together in founding Kanbar Entertainment and Kanbar Animation, independent production studios that teamed with Blue Yonder Films for the production of Hoodwinked!

Cory served as the film's main director, as he had more experience with animation, comedy, and children's entertainment, while Todd served as co-director. Montgomery and Stutzman were joined by Disney animation veteran David Lovegren as producers on the film, and Cory's and Todd's sister Katie Hooten joined as an associate producer. Tony Leech, who had worked with the Edwards brothers on Chillicothe, was initially hired as an editor, but gained story input as well. He eventually proved to be so valuable to the production that he was given a role as co-director.

Pre-Production

The filmmakers found independently producing the film to have both benefits and challenges. Although they were given a great amount of creative control by their executive producer Maurice Kanbar, their small budget kept them from making potentially beneficial changes to the story once production was underway. Todd Edwards related that "Money doesn't just buy you more talent and more machinery, it also buys you flexibility on a story level. At Disney, if they don't like the third act, they just throw the whole thing out and re-animate the whole thing, even if it's finished... We had no such luxury, and so in a way, you're watching our first version of the movie." Knowing ahead of time their inability to alter the film's script once animating had begun, an effort was made by the filmmakers to finalize the script as much as possible before the start of production, which is not a common practice for studio-produced animated films.

Turning away from the well-known archetypes of the Little Red Riding Hood characters, the filmmakers continued to look towards non-linear crime dramas for inspiration instead. Producer Preston Stutzman explained that "The whole film is about surprises and secret lives". Not wanting Red to be "boring" or "too innocent", she was patterned on James Dean and given the desire of leaving home to find her way in the world. Todd Edwards had the idea of basing the Wolf on Chevy Chase's character in Fletch, feeling that it would be fun to apply the character's dry, deadpan style of humour to an animated wolf, while Cory Edwards created the hyperactive character of Twitchy to serve as the Wolf's foil. Going against types, Red's Granny was written as a thrill-seeking action hero, while the strong Woodsman was written as being childishly incompetent.

The police officers were written to come across as everyday guys and Cory Edwards has explained that the decision to make three of them pigs was not politically motivated. Nicky Flippers was not a part of the story as it was initially conceived and prior to his creation, the investigation was going to be led by Chief Grizzly. After producer Sue Bea Montgomery and her husband pointed out similarities between the film and the 1950s television series The Thin Man, the Edwards brothers and Leech decided to introduce the character and his dog into the film as an homage to Nick Charles. They considered several different types of animals before settling on making him a frog.

Director and co-writer Cory Edwards also co-wrote two of the film's songs, performed one of them, and voiced the character Twitchy.

Cory Edwards chose to approach the film predominantly as an action/comedy, instead of as a typical animated film, and wrote the script to appeal to audiences of any age like many of the films produced by Pixar or Disney. Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Muppets, The Simpsons and The Incredibles have all been cited as inspirations for the film. An attempt was made to distance the film from Shrek and other similar themed films that had been recently released, by excluding magic, wizards, and fairies from the film. Cory Edwards also strived for a different style of humour than Shrek, choosing to make his film more family friendly and less of a satire.

Working out of Tony Leech's apartment, Cory Edwards sketched the film's storyboards, Todd Edwards wrote the script while simultaneously writing the songs, and Leech edited the story reel on his Mac computer. Producer Sue Bea Montgomery showed test screenings of the story reel to children in her neighbourhood, and gained input from their reactions. The filmmakers had been considering removing Japeth, but chose not to when he proved popular at these screenings. The children also particularly liked Twitchy, which led to the expansion of the character's role.

In an effort to save costs, the film's cast was originally going to be composed mostly of friends and family members of the filmmakers. Cory and Todd brought in their cousin Tye Edwards to play Dolph and turned to their friend Joshua J. Greene to play Jimmy Lizard. Japeth was written specifically for Benjy Gaither, the son of gospel music singers Bill and Gloria Gaither. He had been a friend of the Edwards brothers since childhood and Cory's short film Wobots had been produced through his animation studio Live Bait Productions. Cory's wife Vicki was given the role of a skunk reporter, and while some consideration was initially given to having an adult play the child woodpecker Quill, the role was instead given to producer David K. Lovegren's daughter Kathryn. The Edwards brothers, Leech, and producer Preston Stutzman all took on roles as well. Wanting to do one of the voices in his movie and having watching a lot of squirrels, Cory took on the role of Twitchy, and Pro Tools was used to speed up the recording of his dialogue by 50 percent. Todd played Sandwich Man, Leech played both Det. Bill Stork and Glen, and Stutzman played Timmy.

As the producers gained greater confidence in the film, however, larger name actors were brought in. Patrick Warburton was the first celebrity actor to join the film and did so purely out of a love for the script. Though Cory Edwards had originally envisioned the Wolf as sounding like a mixture between a young Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, he praised Warburton's performance, saying that he "made the Wolf his own character." Warburton, who had past experience in voice acting from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and The Emperor's New Groove, found funny Edwards' idea to voice the Wolf as an investigative reporter who fancied himself like Chevy Chase's Fletch character, so he decided to voice the Wolf dryly and inquisitively. Andy Dick also joined the cast early on, to voice Boingo. He used improvisation and approached the role differently from how it had been written, interpreting the character as victimized and unstable. The filmmakers were enthusiastic over Dick's angle on the character, and Todd Edwards said, "What we had written was kind of stock, to be honest, but Andy Dick, well, where he was supposed to laugh, he'd be crying. Where he was supposed to yell, he'd be laughing. He just mixed it up!" Prolific voice performers Tara Strong, David Ogden Stiers and Tom Kenny were cast in multiple roles. Strong was cast as Red and Zorra, Stiers was cast as Kirk, the Woodsman and Nicky Flippers, and Kenny was cast as Tommy and Woolworth the Sheep. Emmy-winning actress Sally Struthers was brought in to play Granny Puckett and Joel McCrary was cast as Chief Grizzly.

Animation

The film's animation was created on Maya software, and in an effort to save costs, was produced in Manila, Philippines. Producers Sue Bea Montgomery and David K. Lovegren founded the animation studio Digital Eye Candy for the purpose of the film's production and stationed it in a 5,000-square-foot rented house. Cory Edwards travelled to this studio a total of fifteen times over the course of the film's three-year production and has explained that although the house was located in an expensive part of Manila, the rent was no more than that of his two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. When Cory was not able to be on site, Todd took over directing duties. "Along with Tony, we were kind of a 'three-headed monster,'" Cory explains. "We all knew what movie we were making, and I trusted those guys to make creative calls when I couldn't be there." Lovegren had attempted to start an independent animation studio in the Philippines before in 2001, but the studio, called ImagineAsia, was closed after it failed to attract business. Digital Eye Candy hired approximately twenty animators that had previously been employed by ImagineAsia, and at one point the studio reached fifty employees.

The film's animators had little experience with computer-animation and feature-length films, and had to be trained by the producers over the course of the film's production. Since none of the animators were specialists, they were not divided into specific teams, but instead each worked on all areas of the animating process. The filmmakers found this to be a poor method though, because it kept the individual skills of the animators from being optimized. Due to their independent backgrounds, the animators were accustomed to working at fast paces, and despite their small numbers, each phase of production was able to be completed within a short period of time. Still, schedule and budget restraints led the filmmakers to enlist Prana Studios in Mumbai, India to perform lighting and compositing.

The filmmakers found that the most difficult aspect of producing the film independently was their inability to fix all of the mistakes made in the film's animation. Todd Edwards explained that "it becomes an equation: 'I have 10 things that I would like to change in this shot. I have the time and the budget to do three. Pick those three and then let's move on.' And that was hard to do". Another obstacle during the film's production, according to Cory Edwards, was putting fur on the animal characters. It took the filmmakers three and a half years to crack the code to do so perfectly, forcing themselves to redesign and reanimate several aspects.

Knowing that they could not match the quality of other computer-animated films, the film was instead designed to imitate the look of stop motion. Cory Edwards cited Rankin-Bass as an inspiration and explained, "If we approach our look like that—photographed miniatures in stop motion—and if that nostalgia resonates with our audience as far as that look, then we're not going to shoot ourselves in the foot trying to put every freckle and hair on photoreal creatures." Edwards contrasted the technically innovative, but critically panned 1986 film Howard the Duck with the simple, but beloved puppet character Kermit the Frog to illustrate to his crew the importance of well-written, likeable characters over technical quality.

Distancing the film from what producer Preston Stutzman called the "candy-coated, brightly coloured pastel worlds" of other CG animated films, an attempt was made to bring an organic look to the film, and dirt was rubbed into the colours. The Nightmare Before Christmas was cited as an inspiration for the filmmakers to try to bend the characters' shapes into extremes, and many other choices unconventional to computer-animated films were also made. For example, one of the Woodsman's eyes was made bigger than the other, and Red was given only four fingers, so as to make her look more like a doll. Producer Katie Hooten explained that "CG in the past has been pushing the envelope to make things look more realistic, but Hoodwinked takes things back to where CG looks a lot more like a cartoon."

Music

The film's score was composed by John Mark Painter, who along with his wife Fleming McWilliams, constituted the rock duo Fleming and John in the 1990s. The Edwards brothers were fans of the group and first met Painter while Cory was performing in an animated film on which Painter served as the composer. The score was inspired by music from the 1960s and the soundtracks to Planet of the Apes, Dark Shadows, and The Untouchables have been cited as influences, as well as the works of Henry Mancini. It was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, where Kristin Wilkinson served as the orchestrator and conductor.

In an effort to appeal to older audience members, Todd Edwards chose to replace parts of Painter's score with original rock music. From this came the song "Little Boat", written and sung by Daniel Rogers, who had composed Edwards' first film Chillicothe. "Runaway" was written by Joshua J. Greene, a friend of the Edwards brothers', who also provided the voice of Jimmy Lizard in the film. "The Real G", sung by Cory Edwards and "Bounce", sung by Todd Collins were both written by Painter and Cory Edwards. "Blow Your House Down" was performed by the Filipino band Pupil and written by their lead singer Ely Buendia. Cory Edwards wanted to include the Foo Fighters' song "All My Life", but he was met with no enthusiasm about the idea and was told that the song had been overused.

Todd Edwards wrote nine original songs for the film and sung four of them: "Critters Have Feelings", "Tree Critter", "Eva Deanna", and "Glow". "Eva Deanna" was written about a day that he and his wife spent at the zoo with their niece, the daughter of associate producer Katie Hooten. "Glow" was written about the Edwards siblings' grandmother, Vera, who had died a few years earlier. "Great Big World" was sung by Anne Hathaway and replaced another song called "Woods Go-Round", which Edwards considered too childish and described as being "in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons." This change required the scene to be re-animated and re-cut. "Be Prepared" was sung by Benjy Gaither and developed out of a practicality; the filmmakers wanted to introduce Japeth while the character is rocking back and forth on his horns, as though the horns are a rocking chair. However, they realized that this would make the horns too big to fit in a minecart later on in the film. As a solution, they came up with the gag of having the character switch his horns several times, and this led to the song's concept. McWilliams joined Jim Belushi to sing "The Schnitzel Song" and Painter asked his longtime friend Ben Folds to sing "Red is Blue", a selection strongly advocated for by Edwards. Folds was working on a new album at the time, but a year after the proposal, found the opportunity to record the song and compose a piano arrangement for it as well. "Top of the Woods" was sung by Andy Dick and was originally composed to be slow-paced. The recording of Dick's performance was sped up though at the suggestion of Ralf Palmer, a prolific animator and friend of producer Sue Bea Montgomery.

Distribution

Hoodwinked! was shown to potential distributors throughout various stages of its production. Though a distribution offer was made by DreamWorks, it was turned down as the filmmakers did not feel that it was a good deal. As the film neared the end of production, it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Harvey and Bob Weinstein were also at the festival at the time, screening Robert Rodriguez's film Sin City, which they were distributing through their then newly formed studio, The Weinstein Company. They decided to pick Hoodwinked! up for distribution after it was brought to their attention by Rodriguez's wife, whose attorney also happened to work for Blue Yonder Films. Although Cory Edwards did not meet Rodriguez, he acknowledged him as instrumental to get the film made.

The Weinsteins had recently left the Walt Disney Company and according to Cory Edwards, they "loved the idea of picking up an animated film and giving Disney a run for their money". The involvement of the Weinstein Company encouraged Kanbar enough to enlist Skywalker Sound. The film was nearly complete by the time that the Weinsteins became involved, and Edwards has stated that nothing was done by them to ruin "the original vision of the movie." However, a few edit suggestions were made to quicken the film's pace which Edwards felt were good ideas, as he considered the first twenty minutes to be dragging.

The Weinstein Company also heavily recast the film with bigger-name actors in the hopes of attracting a larger audience. Anne Hathaway replaced Tara Strong in the lead role of Red; Jim Belushi replaced David Ogden Stiers in the role of Kirk, the Woodsman; Anthony Anderson replaced Tony Leech in the role of Det. Bill Stork; Glenn Close replaced Sally Struthers in the role of Granny Puckett; Xzibit replaced Joel McCrary in the role of Chief Grizzly and Chazz Palminteri replaced Tom Kenny in the role of Woolworth the Sheep. Opining that the final steps in character design were really fleshed out when the actors were hired, Hooten felt that Hathaway put some edge that was missing on Red, making her more sarcastic, sassy and quick. Anderson accepted the role of Bill Stork given his past experience as voice actor and his previous collaborations with the Weinsteins in Scary Movie 3 and My Baby's Daddy, wanting to do something that his children and godchildren could watch and enjoy. Palminteri was called to be offered the part of Woolworth the Sheep, which he accepted as found the script hilarious. Despite these recasting's, Tara Strong retained the much smaller role of Zorra, David Ogden Stiers retained the role of Nicky Flippers, Tom Kenny retained the role of Tommy and Tony Leech retained the role of Glen. Many high-profile country singers were considered to replace Benjy Gaither in the role of Japeth, but none of them were available and Gaither retained the role. The Weinsteins also wanted to replace Joshua J. Greene in the role of Jimmy Lizard with a more famous actor such as Albert Brooks, but the role was ultimately not recast. Edwards appreciated the reason for the recasting's and attributed a large part of the film's financial success to them. He expressed disappointment about the amount of recasting, however, saying, "At a certain point it became Recast-o-Rama, everybody got recast-happy. My feeling is, you get two or three names on that poster, you're fine. Our Hoodwinked poster has like a paragraph of names on it. After a certain point, I don't think you need more than two, three celebrities—give it to the voice actors. It sweetens the pot". Since the film's animation had already been mostly completed by the time the recasting's were made, the new actors had to deliver their lines exactly as the old actors had done, giving them no opportunity to improvise. Edwards expressed disappointment with the fact that the original actors would not get any credit for their improvisations in the film, which were copied by the replacement actors.

My Review

Again, like Happily N'ever After (2006)(the last review) I randomly just remembered this film from my childhood, another beloved one. And again I rewatched it to see if it still held up... AGAIN I wasn't disappointed. Actually, even though the animation isn't as smooth as Happily N'ever After it is mush more detailed and can be quite clunky here and there with some of the characters, it is a really good family movie. Yet it is very predictable but we'll let that slide. I'm SHOCKED at how much I like this film {man little Psycho had great taste in movies}. Like, brothers Todd and Cory Edwards, the creators, fought so hard for this film. They directed, produced and wrote/sung the score for this film. Like imagine thinking of an idea for a film and turning it into a movie... Todd Edwards has my full respect, his hard work payed off.

It is very cartoony, the comedy though corny at times do still get some very big laughs. The cast, again, so many big a-list actors giving this small budgeted movie their all: Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, Patrick Warburton, Jim Belushi, Andy Dick, etc. Especially since the budget was so limited, speaking of; this film only had a budget of 8 million and received a staggering 108 million in the box office!

Yet this film has faced a lot of severe backlash from some audiences who claim it to be a ripoff of Shrek - sure it has a similar premise, fairy tale characters, but this is solely based on the Brothers Grimm tale of Little Red Riding Hood and turns it into a criminal/mystery movie. Like OMG, that's just amazing. At first glance you wouldn't think that the premise sounds good, maybe a little confusing, but my word does this film make the idea work!

I mean sure, Harvey Weinstein may have helped with the production and marketing with this film - we all know that Weinstein isn't very favoured - but you honestly forget about that because it's actually a good film! {OOF}. However, the same can't be said for the sequel, Hoodwinked Too: Hood Vs Evil, it's a continuation of the first one apparently - I've not watched it yet, but I've heard bad things about it other than the animation being slightly better, so I haven't decided on giving it a skip or a watch yet.

Following the score point. Todd and Cory wrote, and sung a couple, all original songs for this film - all of these songs featured are all orignal, like no mainstream artists anywhere... AHHHHHH - and they are AMAZING. They are so catchy, maybe a little bit forgettable but when you remember them... you remember them {if you get what I mean). I've already added two of these songs to my phone and I will most likely continue to listen to these on a daily basis.

{Especially this one}

Todd Edwards - Critters Have Feelings Original - YouTube

https://youtu.be/1ript9SGHGE?list=TLPQMjgxMjIwMjGQHsZYkkRkRw

{I put the link because there is only one good high quality version and when I try to place the video normally in here it doesn't work so yeah... ENJOY}.

So much love and dedication went into this film and it shows. Like I am in AWE at how good this movie truly is. It projects a whole new perspective of the traditional fairy tale by bringing it into a new light, as well as bringing a new shine to the characters and giving them all distinct personalities and traits, and I applaud the Edwards for doing so. So yeah, hands down a great, highly underrated film that definitely deserves more attention. I highly recommend that you check this film out if you haven't already, you may or may not regret it; 9/10! {I may be being too generous with this score, but whatever this is my opinion you can make your own up}.