Red Riding Hood film review
Apr. 3rd, 2011 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furtechI miss the days when I had friends who would go to see bad werewolf films with me. Tracy's in VA, Gordon's in SJ and a couple of others are far-flung and away. I couldn't even get ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iisaw to see it (his reviews have saved me from some stinkers). I -almost- had him talked into it, but then I slipped and mentioned that this is the same director that did "Twilight" and he shriveled in revulsion (he had, in fact, seen Twilight and warned me off it).
The film fools you with great costumes and nice, fairy-tale-styled sets. Then you start to notice that -all- of the villagers are pretty and clean. Even the village idiot is tidy. Bad sign.
As the film goes on, the village and its inhabitants begin to look and act more like a high-school Renaissance faire. In fact, the village celebrates the death of a fake wolf by having a goth-rave. Srsly.
There's a local werewolf, pacified for years with a monthly animal offering. Suddenly, a girl is killed. Villagers go hunting for it. Kill a wolf. Bring head back to village. Worst fake wolf head ever. The head had no weight, was clean and looked like it was from Folkmanis (which, as stuffies go, is nice-- but nothing like a gory head cut from a wolf).
In fact, there is no gore in the film to speak of: wounds are neat and clean (a guy gets bitten by the werewolf, enough to be turned into one, and bite looks like a hicky).
Villain/heavy Gary Oldman was entertaining, as usual. He is high in church hierarchy. We know this because he has a silver sword blessed by “His Holiness”. Yet, to show the dangers of this werewolf, he pulls out a large, elaborate orrery to demonstrate how a “red moon” occurs. Why is a man of the cloth (the CATHOLIC cloth) using the same science that got Galileo arrested by the Inquisition?!? This gets worse: the orrery shows (somehow) a month of full moons and why the moon is red (because of the alignment of the “red planet” with the moon). Huh?
Now to the important stuff: the reason -why- I go to these films ever-hopeful: the werewolf!
Actually, he's decent: dire-wolf/4legged style, not rawr-two-legged werewolf, but nice nonetheless. Rhythm and Hues did a good job as he didn’t look computer-generated in close-ups. Long shots still look decidedly digital-- they still don’t have movement (too smooth) and weight (none) down yet.
Not a bad film for Netflix or free, but don’t spend good money on it. If you like the Twilight series you may enjoy this movie. The dialogue is anachronistic (much) and the film suffers from too much booga-booga and obvious red-herrings, but at least they have the sense to keep it short (1hr, 49mins).
iisaw to see it (his reviews have saved me from some stinkers). I -almost- had him talked into it, but then I slipped and mentioned that this is the same director that did "Twilight" and he shriveled in revulsion (he had, in fact, seen Twilight and warned me off it).The film fools you with great costumes and nice, fairy-tale-styled sets. Then you start to notice that -all- of the villagers are pretty and clean. Even the village idiot is tidy. Bad sign.
As the film goes on, the village and its inhabitants begin to look and act more like a high-school Renaissance faire. In fact, the village celebrates the death of a fake wolf by having a goth-rave. Srsly.
There's a local werewolf, pacified for years with a monthly animal offering. Suddenly, a girl is killed. Villagers go hunting for it. Kill a wolf. Bring head back to village. Worst fake wolf head ever. The head had no weight, was clean and looked like it was from Folkmanis (which, as stuffies go, is nice-- but nothing like a gory head cut from a wolf).
In fact, there is no gore in the film to speak of: wounds are neat and clean (a guy gets bitten by the werewolf, enough to be turned into one, and bite looks like a hicky).
Villain/heavy Gary Oldman was entertaining, as usual. He is high in church hierarchy. We know this because he has a silver sword blessed by “His Holiness”. Yet, to show the dangers of this werewolf, he pulls out a large, elaborate orrery to demonstrate how a “red moon” occurs. Why is a man of the cloth (the CATHOLIC cloth) using the same science that got Galileo arrested by the Inquisition?!? This gets worse: the orrery shows (somehow) a month of full moons and why the moon is red (because of the alignment of the “red planet” with the moon). Huh?
Now to the important stuff: the reason -why- I go to these films ever-hopeful: the werewolf!
Actually, he's decent: dire-wolf/4legged style, not rawr-two-legged werewolf, but nice nonetheless. Rhythm and Hues did a good job as he didn’t look computer-generated in close-ups. Long shots still look decidedly digital-- they still don’t have movement (too smooth) and weight (none) down yet.
Not a bad film for Netflix or free, but don’t spend good money on it. If you like the Twilight series you may enjoy this movie. The dialogue is anachronistic (much) and the film suffers from too much booga-booga and obvious red-herrings, but at least they have the sense to keep it short (1hr, 49mins).
