Red Riding Hood

When you hear Red Riding Hood is directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Twilight, you immediately know what it's aiming to be: a dark, sexy take on the fairy tale we all know. Unfortunately, this film is neither.
Amanda Seyfried plays Valerie, a girl, from the village of Daggerhorn, cursed by the presence of a werewolf. After finding out she is to marry the village rich boy, Henry (Irons) she plans to run away with Peter (Fernandez), but the werewolf kills her older sister, its first human victim in almost 20 years. When more people are killed in a celebration, the village wants revenge, and so starts the mystery of finding out who the werewolf is.

In all fairness, as Valerie tries to figure out the identity of the werewolf, the film does keep you guessing as well.  The writer, David Leslie Johnson (Orphan), throws in false hints in practically every scene, to which Seyfried does her "you might be the werewolf" face. They're so obvious that you're most likely to be thinking it must be someone else, because they couldn't possibly let the secret out this early.

Besides only having one "you might be the werewolf" face, Seyfried plays Valerie well. However I still haven't understood how she went from being the dumb one in Mean Girls, to leading lady. It may be harsh, but there's nothing particularly watchable about her. The same goes for her on-screen fiancé. Max Irons may have acting in his blood, and be able to give a decent performance, but he gives no reason for the audience to sympathize with him. Usually, you'd feel something for the guy the girl doesn't choose, especially if he isn't a bad guy.

Shiloh Fernandez is quite good, and does the whole potential-bad-guy thing well. He also fits perfectly into trying to get the Twilight crowd, since he almost got the role of Edward Cullen, before it went to Robert Pattinson. This could have been his big Hollywood break, but he deserved something better. Gary Oldman is also quite good. He overplays his character a bit to the extent of becoming a secondary villain to the story. When you have a werewolf, why the need for a human villain?

The film looks really good. The red cape contrasting with the white snow imagery is used a lot, as you would expect. The soundtrack, by Brian Reitzell and Alex Heffes, works well with the mood of the film, but isn't all that memorable. If only the music and cinematography could make a film better as a whole.

Drawing from the original fable, Red Riding Hood is not the light, happy-ending tale we know it as, but as a film it never gets dark enough to be the thriller it is trying so hard to be. Instead its remains stuck below the point of exciting its audience, for its entire running time.

Red Riding Hood hits UK cinemas on April 15th