Red Riding Hood

Catherine Hardwicke is a director who has callously ripped herself off. The Texas-born filmmaker, who shot to fame with the indie hit "Thirteen" in 2003, has cashed in on the franchise she herself sparked back in 2008 -- namely, "Twilight." In her first feature since then, "Red Riding Hood," she has made a film that is so distractingly identical in look and tone to her previous vampirific fantasy that one cannot brush away the feeling that Miss Hardwicke has stolen from her own property for purposes of financial gain.

The "Twilight" saga is, of course, a gigantic money-maker (the series has thus far received over $1.7 billion worldwide with just three instalments), and is a notable appeal to the teenage girl crowd. Given this, I can understand Hardwicke's decision to stick with the supernatural love story genre, but the baffling similarities between the continuing epic bloodsucker blockbusters and "Red Riding Hood" render her newest project frankly pathetic.

As you would assume, this is based on the age-old fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood," albeit very loosely. It is set in Daggerhorn, a secluded Medieval village positioned inside a snowy forest, in which a bloodthirsty werewolf dangerously lurks. The villagers leave out fresh animal meat every night for ol' wolfie to devour, but this is apparently no longer enough.

After over 20 years of not harming a human, The Big Bad Wolf attacks and kills Lucie (Alexandria Maillot), the sister of Valerie (Amanda Seyfried, "Letters to Juliet"), who is our Little Red Riding Hood of sorts. The villagers ask for some assistance, their call answered by Father Solomon (Gary Oldman, "The Dark Knight"), a dedicated werewolf hunter with brutish bodyguards.

He comes to the conclusion that the wolf is one of the villagers, and is absolutely flamin' determined to find out who the lycanthrope is. Hey, I have an idea: how about you throw a stick in the air and see which one of the villagers fetches it for you and then humps your ankle? Just a suggestion.

Meanwhile, Valerie is besotted with the dreamy Peter (Shiloh Fernandez, "Deadgirl"), a woodcutter who, for some reason, has hair gel in the middle ages. Witchcraft, I tell thee! However, her parents have set her to marry Henry (Max Irons, "Dorian Gray"), who has much more promise and is apparently her "only hope for a better life." But what will Valerie do? Will she run away with the man she loves or respect her parents' wishes and wed a guy she barely knows? Tune into next week's "One Tree Hill" to find out.

The veins of "Red Riding Hood" are throbbing with teenage angst, the kind you'll find heavily sprinkled throughout the "Twilight" chronicles. Mopey adolescent mumblecore is mashed up with laughable supernaturalism, making for a film that is extraordinarily difficult to take seriously. What mostly worked for Hardwicke's vampire romance has failed miserably in this case.

The film is utterly clueless about its own ridiculousness, with all actors po-faced and the sombre tone never breaking for some tongue-in-cheek relief. Cheese carries a pungent stench in every single scene, the film's absurdness stinking up the flick. The line "Lock him up in the elephant" sounds preposterous even when given the context.

The clumsy script attempts to juggle romantic sentimentality and SFX monster horror, but writer David Johnson ("Orphan") keeps dropping them on the floor. The romance is remarkably unconvincing, and the supposedly scary moments fail to excite. This results in a faceless flick that's just a dribbling, lumpy mess of two opposing genres, neither of which carry any weight whatsoever.

Dishing out more red herrings than an entire series of "Midsomer Murders," "Red Riding Hood" also tries to be a tense whodunit. These mystery moments are equally corny, the script manipulating key characters to make it seem like they're the snarling werewolf. Either the actors have been told to sound incredibly suspicious in particular scenes, or they're just horrible performers -- I think I'll go with both.

The only one really earning their pay check here is Gary Oldman, though this should come as no surprise. He's an all-knowing wolf-gutter obsessed with hunting down the furry creatures, and he delivers lines with what occasionally seems to be a knowing camp. Becoming the evil and merciless villain of the piece, he brings a sense of class to the proceedings. I'm assuming the British actor is just using the film to help pay off a mortgage, though.

For all its atmospheric cinematography, for all its lovely set designs, for all its pitch-perfect costume stitching, "Red Riding Hood" has all the heart and soul of a yellow rubber duck. Feeling far too much like a "Twilight" instalment, it's more than a bit of a mess, with characters conversing in clunky dialogue and the film completely unaware of how silly it all is. My, what an awful film you have, Miss Hardwicke. All the better to bore me with, I guess.

1/10