The lukewarm independently produced Hoodwinked traversed the familiar territory of lampooning fairy tales much like Shrek did, and like the big green Dreamworks franchise, Hoodwinked relied far too heavily on pop culture references to pad a weak story. Its heart was in the right place, but it never rose above the increasingly large crowd of subpar animated fare. To make matters worse, Hoodwinked was far too intent on setting up a sequel, a dangerous ambition to focus on before you’ve even made a competent original. It happened though, and now the world must deal with Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, an animated feature lacking in any intelligence or wit brought to life with CGI varying in quality between a poor video game cut scene and decent rendering.
When a witch (Joan Cusack) kidnaps Granny (Glenn Close) along with Hansel (Bill Hader) and Gretel (Amy Poehler) in order to learn the secret recipe of super powered truffles, and it’s up to Red Riding Hood (Hayden Panettiere), Wolf (Patrick Warburton), and their fairy tale friends to stop them. The comedy is poorly written with random one-liners tossed left and right with few of the punch lines ever landing. The only bright spots in the cast are a poorly used Patrick Warburton as Wolf and Amy Poehler and Bill Hader, performing hilariously as Gretel and Hansel. The latter two deliver all of the funny lines as everyone else in the film just spouts out nonsensical jokes that any writer would be ashamed to own up to.
Despite the fact that they’ve created a disaster in Hoodwinked Too!, Kanbar Entertainment sets up the ending for yet another installment no one asked for, making the creators of Hoodwinked the Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer of the animated feature world. Don’t support this film.
DVD Bonus Features
Three music videos, by Hayden Panettiere, Lavay Cole, and CeeJ make up the bulk of the extras, with a featurette devoted to the voice cast, as well as production pieces on the film’s storyboards and artwork.
"Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil" is on sale August 16, 2011 and is rated PG. Adventure, Animation, Comedy. Directed by Mike Disa. Written by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, . Starring Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Glenn Close, Hayden Panettiere, Patrick Warburton.
