Following the original 2005 animated movie Hoodwinked, the sequel Hoodwinked Too is now available on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download.  Once again, The Weinstein Company has brought its version of a tongue-in-cheek fairytale mash-up, a la Dreamworks’ Shrek franchise.  Most of the characters and many acclaimed voice actors have returned, offering another madcap adventure for Little Red Riding Hood, her Granny and the Big Bad Wolf.

In this latest escapade, Granny is kidnapped in the name of obtaining the recipe to a powerful culinary confection, the Norwegian Black Forest Feather Cake Truffle Divine.  By eating this delicacy, the one enjoying it also receives superhuman strength and size, which could be used to exploit the world.  Along with her associates at the Happily Ever After Agency (the HEA), Little Red Riding Hood sets out on a quest to not only free her Granny, but also to rescue the fate of happy endings everywhere.

While I’m not a fan of the Shrek movies, I do love fairy tales and feel there is definitely a place for irreverent takes on beloved and even sometimes ancient stories.  Several Looney Toones classics are perfect examples of this.  Some of the premises to my favorite fairy tales are absolutely ridiculous if you stop to think about them.  So I had hoped that the Hoodwinked series might prove to be a humorous and family-friendly take on the world of Red Riding Hood and the HEA.

Unfortunately, Hoodwinked Too was a disappointment on many levels.  The quality of the animation is fairly weak, but this could have been overlooked had the overall production had been better.  The Weinstein Company managed to bring in quite a pedigree of voices, but even the likes of Glenn Close, Patrick Warburton, Hayden Panettiere and Joan Cusak could not rescue this movie from mediocrity.  It’s often frenetic, with the one-liners coming at such a rapid clip the humor couldn’t have been appreciated even if the writing had been good.  It easily earns its PG rating with a bit of off-color humor.  In the first 8 minutes of the film, Wolf takes a crotch shot and says, “I can taste my own butt.”  The language goes a bit beyond standard kiddie fare, although they do soften this issue a bit by using the ubiquitous “muffins” as a curse word seemingly every other minute.  Although I have seen other animated movies with more gross-out humor and more adult content, Hoodwinked Too is still a waste of time for adults, and frequently inappropriate for children.  The admirable themes of perseverance and teamwork notwithstanding, I’d recommend saving your dime, your hour and a half, and find a happier ending elsewhere.

DVD Special Features

Music Videos

• Hayden Panettiere – “I Can Do It Alone”
• Lavay Cole – “You Know It”
• CeeJ – “Perfect Two”

“The Voices”
Storyboard Sequences
Production Artwork
Hoodwinked Too! Video Game Teasers