Red Riding Hood: Critic Reviews

The result is a dolled-up, overblown, pandering romantic costume drama that's not only sillier than the filmmakers surely intended but also, if you follow the plot implications all the way to the end, way ickier, too.

But, my, what sharp teeth Ms. Hardwicke doesn't have.

It's the seriousness with which Hardwicke treats the tale that proves its undoing.

A foolish story, marred by a strange blend of overacting and bland, offhand performances.

A lurid, loopy, utterly ludicrous enterprise that seeks to twist the ultimate fable of feminine fear and victimhood into an allegory for finding your inner bad girl.

A laughably inept series of adolescent poses trying to pass itself off as a movie.

Hardwicke, whose first "Twilight" film looks like "Citizen Kane" with fangs compared to this, takes things sooo seriously, which translates as buffoonery.

For a while the joke seems intentional.

Red Riding Hood is just another movie about a girl pining for a boy, defined by a boy, held back by a boy. And that's not pretty.

Acting's awful, storyline's messy and unengaging, and there's not a trace of authentic passion anywhere in the movie's picture-pretty production design.

More "Twilight" than Grimm, and a terrible mess.

Red Riding Hood has the added inconvenience of being dreadfully serious about a plot so preposterous, it demands to be filmed by Monty Python.

Overheated yet underpowered.

Like an idiot, I came to this movie hoping that director Catherine Hardwicke might engage in a feminist interrogation of the old fairy tale.

Seyfried holds the camera's attention, playing this storybook business pretty much straight, although David Leslie Johnson's script puts the actress sorely to the test.

"Red Riding Hood" is entertainment for the village idiot.

Red Riding Hood is pretty decent, considering it's, you know, Red Riding Hood.

If, by chance, you've missed "Twilight" and its sequels, don't worry. Shiny, moody, moon-faced and dumb, "Red Riding Hood" pretty much replicates the experience entirely.

Catherine Hardwicke is Anne Rice with a camera.

Intermittently enjoyable hokum at best.

[Hardwicke] has a gift for taking situations of bloodcurdling thrills and investing them with all of the drama of a sophomore fussing over her prom date.

For all the heaving bosoms, the big-eyed flirtation and the cool Medieval fairytale hair products, it doesn't work.

Hardwicke helms Red Riding Hood with a clear vision for her target audience: young teens. There's violence but little blood, some chaste sexy bits and a few, swift scares.

Hardwicke directed Twilight, you'll recall, and would apparently like to continue directing it, over and over again.

Have you had questions about the motivations of the wolf, or suspicions about Grandma? Have you pondered the sexual connotations of this age-old fairy tale? Me neither. Just the same, someone has made a movie about...