a movie review by: Bill DeLapp

Yes, a wolf in sheep's clothing does turn up in this computer-animated riff on Little Red Riding Hood, but so does a spry grandma who's into extreme sports and a nutty Nordic lumberjack who could pass for the current governor of California. Yanked from the Christmas lineup (presumably because the newly formed Weinstein Company couldn't secure enough screens for this film and the Down Under horror yarn Wolf Creek) and dumped into the January multiplex doldrums, this silly, far-from-Grimm send-up cleverly blends elements from the Moxie-filled Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1940s with a steroidal overdose of Rankin-Bass cuteness.

Froggy detective Nicky Flippers (voice by Frasier's David Hyde Pierce) investigates the breaking-and-entering case down at the forest dwelling of Granny Puckette (Glenn Close), queen of all tasty goodies. Granddaughter Red (The Princess Diaries' Anne Hathaway) is involved, but so is a suspicious-looking wolf (The Tick's Patrick Warburton, who has the mellifluous deadpan delivery of Batman's Adam West). Don't forget the to-the-rescue woodsman (Jim Belushi, in what appears to be a parody of his Red Heat co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger), who somersaults through the picture window, screaming and ready to swing his ax. Along the way, of course, Granny gets burgled when her secret recipes turn up missing, part of a crime wave that has plagued other eats-oriented establishments in the woods.

Animation auteurs Cory and Todd Edwards seem to be taking their cues from fraternal filmmakers Ethan and Joel Coen, as Hoodwinked proceeds in an inspired Rashomon-type fashion to reveal the bizarre backstories for the quartet of suspects. And anything goes here. When picnic-basket case Red pouts that she's still being treated like a kid, for instance, the song "Red Is Blue" goofily underscores her emotions. A yodeling goat (Benjy Gaither, in a nod to Burl Ives from Rankin-Bass' TV classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer) takes some of the characters on a wild ride aboard some mountainside train tracks. A shutterbug squirrel sidekick named Twitchy (Cory Edwards) snaps away for the Once Upon a Times newspaper. And Granny performs the daredevil type of snowboarding stunts found in the Vin Diesel opus XXX.

Filmed for a relatively low $15 million, Hoodwinked ably proves that big budgets and recognizable Film Star voices a la Shrek aren't entirely essential for such animated ventures. The Edwards do-it-yourself approach adds to the good vibrations, as do some well-cast voice performers (including East Syracuse's Tom Kenny in a supporting bit) and a genuinely funny script with punchlines whose subjects range from Mensa to The Matrix. Stealing this show is Warburton's weary-voiced wolf, who carps that he's been profiled as the No. 1 suspect, and at one point opines that he'd rather be doing movie reviews instead. When the movie's as much of a hoot as Hoodwinked, the review practically writes itself.

Anne Hathaway Photo

Glenn Close Photograph