Actually, I didn't plan on watching this movie because I expected it to be as rotten as the Twilight series since it was directed by the same person - Catherine Hardwicke... However, in order to motivate my grrlll to finish her Academic Exercise (AE), I made watching this movie as a reward for her to finish keying in all the data of her research into the SPSS program... Hey, to my surprise, this movie is actually not bad... 

THE STORY

The ancient tale of The Little Red Riding Hood are now retold with a bit of a twist... Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) lived in a village haunted by a fierce werewolf who fed on farm animals every time the full moon emerged... If the villagers kept giving sacrifices of piglets and lambs, the werewolf would leave them alone and mind his own business - that was the deal... However, one full moon, the wolf broke the peace when it killed a girl, Valerie's sister, at the edge of the village area... After that, the story revolved on the hunt for the wolf and the struggle of killing it... Besides that, a bit of conflict in romance also present in the story where Valerie had to choose between the love of her life, Peter (Shiloh Fernandes) and the rich and noble Henry (Max Irons)... 

A hot girl... Check

Two handsome looking guys who are competitors in love... Check

Werewolf... Check

The only thing that makes the story different from Twilight's - there's no glittery vampires...  

THE GOOD

The Enigma 

The thing that intrigued me the most in this movie (besides Amanda Seyfried) was the enigma of who the werewolf really was... "Is it the grandmother? Well, she did live outside the village area... or is it the boyfriend? Shit, who the hell is it??"... The plot kept me guessing as it gave so many misleading hints such as when Valerie dreamed of her grandmother being the wolf and the fact that Peter could escape from the iron elephant (those who had not seen the movie might be wondering - there's also an iron elephant??)... 

I would like to give credit to the script writer, David Johnson, who was also the one who wrote the script for the intriguing psycho thriller, Orphan... He managed to mash up mystery with a bit of romance and turned the mixture into something quite good... 

Amanda Seyfried 

With her role as Valerie in this movie, I guess it would be possible for Seyfried to be nominated as the most popular teen actress of 2011... The Twilight series had brought Kristen Stewart so far that she won so many awards solely on her popularity (not her acting) and I guess Red Riding Hood would do the same thing to Seyfried... But seriously, she managed to shine brighter than Stewart in terms of acting skills... Sadness, suspense, confusion, romance... She managed to portray all of those in a very convincing manner... 

and she's prettier than Stewart... 

Hot Guys

This would be a plus point for girls... My grrrll was like, "Ooohh handsome!!" and "Damn... Handsome!!"... Yeah, the same thing happened when we watched Twilight... "Edward!!!"... Ergghh...

A bit gay looking too... 

There was no impact when the true identity of the wolf was revealed... I expected that it transform back into human form in front of Valerie but instead, it just came out from the back of a curtain... A bit disappointed there... It's like, the good pace was ruined for me...



I was hoping to see tAmanda Seyfried getting all hot and dirty with her boyfriend... But it got cut... PFFTTT...  Come on, they were just kissing a very romantic way... There was not even a single moment of nudity in the scene... Hey, I paid for to see the full movie!!! What an irony, I got to watch the WHOLE movie only when I downloaded it for free...




Like I said before, the movie is not bad... Far better than the Twilight series... The strength lies mostly on the plot of the story where the twists and enigma kept me interested through out the entire movie... But I dunno about u... U must really watch it before u judge... This review is solely based on my opinion...


3.5 out 5 stars...