Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is a beautiful young woman living in a medieval village by a forrest. The most common fear among the people is the wolf that keeps attacking the village. While they managed to keep the wolf from attacking the humans by presenting it with animals, the wolf starts killing with Valerie’s sister. This infuriates them all,and the town priest (Lukas Haas) calls for the expert werewolf-hunter priest, Father Solomon (Gary Oldman). However many of the villagers don’t want to wait and kill the wolf themselves. Among these brave men are Henry and Peter, the two men who make Valerie’s lives highly complicated:
Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) is Valerie’s childhood friend and the love of her life. He is a loner without much money. Henry (Max Irons), on the other hand, is well-off, and Valerie’s mother (Virginia Madsen) is adamant? that her daughter marries Henry to get a better life.
As the villagers come back with the head of the wolf, and minus Henry’s father, they are certain they don’t need Father Solomon. However Solomon arrives with bad news. He informs the villagers that what they hunted is a simple wolf, whereas they are being hunted by a werewolf. He closes the village doors and tells everyone to be suspicious of each other, as the werewolf has a human form and could be any one of them. When the werewolf attacks, he doesn’t harm Valerie. Instead he talks to her, and apparently only she can hear it. It asks Valerie to come with it, and if she doesn’t, it just won’t leave the villagers alone. This sends the villagers into suspecting that she is a witch, and she starts suspecting everyone. Can the werewolf be Henry or Peter? Or her own grandmother (Julie Christie). And whoever it is, why does it want Valerie?
**
Red Riding Hood takes the basic elements from the fair tale, plays around a little, puts in a werewolf instead of wolf, puts in a love triangle and serves it with a good cast. We get a mystery thriller, which is more of a gothic romance than a thriller.
While it is not a bad experience overall, I just had one big annoyance: the werewolf. Directed by Twilight’s director Catherine Hardwicke, the werewolf- very much like the wolves in Twilight– big and very badly structured on the computer. When you have a laughable villain, It really takes a lot from the movie, a movie that is supposed to be a thriller.
But the ridiculousness of the villain aside, it is a fun film. You get to guess who the wolf might be, who Valerie will end up with and when she just might have sex with one of them…
I did mention good cast, right? You have Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Virginia Madsen & Julie Christie.
It is not great, but it is not bad (apart from the wolf’s appearance). It also has a decent soundtrack. It is watchable if you are in the mood for a romance with supernatural elements lurking around.
Fun notes:
– Many watchers inevitably compared this to Twilight, where there the series are based on the love triangle. Here, the love triangle consists from 3 humans- although we suspect there is a werewolf among them.
– Twilight’s Chief Swan (Billy Burke), a.k.a. Bella’s father again gets to play the female protagonist’s father. Although Valerie’s dad could learn a thing or two from Swan when it comes to parenting.
– You might be bothered that a medieval village is dominated by modern English and American accents. But if I can accept a werewolf exists (for a movie), I can accept the accents.
**
Currently Rated 4.9 on IMDB. I suspect it could have earned higher votes, had the wolf looked menacing and not fake.
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