I wanted to like "Red Riding Hood" — an inertly erotic, Gothic version of the parable from director Catherine Hardwicke — but it's so dreadfully self-serious that it often ends up just being silly.
Hardwicke, who helmed the first "Twilight" movie before leaving the franchise, has a keen eye and sumptuous visual style. Her version of a girl plagued by a deadly werewolf has a lush, dreamy quality, as if the picture is indistinct around the edges.
Here, Amanda Seyfried plays Valerie, a virginal town girl with a carnally curious nature. She has not one but two suitors: Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), the poor woodcutter who's loved her since childhood; and Henry (Max Irons), the spoiled but not entirely unworthy rich boy who's been promised Valerie's hand in marriage.
When a ghostly wolf threatens the village, help arrives in the form of Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), a lycanthrope-hunting priest whose style is closer to Inquisition than Saint Francis.
Other characters flitting around the edges of the story are a meek priest (Lukas Haas) and Valerie's grandmother (Julie Christie), who lives alone deep in the woods with her bubbling cauldron.
David Johnson's screenplay devolves into a woefully misguided whodunit, in which the audience tries to figure out who is secretly the werewolf. Meanwhile, Hardwicke indulges in plenty of her own excesses, including a medieval dance session with the village teens that resembles a modern rave.
It never pays to sex up the classics.
Extra features are quite skimpy for the DVD version, but improve greatly upon upgrading to the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.
The DVD contains only a single goodie: several deleted scenes.
The combo pack, dubbed the "Alternate Cut," features a director's cut that's slightly different from the theatrical version, including a new ending. There is also a picture-in-picture commentary with Hardwicke, Seyfried, Fernandez and Irons; I only wish more films included such participation by the principal cast members.
There is also a digital copy of the film and another dozen or so featurettes and Easter eggs, including casting tapes, footage from rehearsals, a music video, a gag reel and more.
Film: 2 Yaps Extras: 4.5 Yaps