The director of the first Twilight film, Catherine Hardwicke has been hard at work with her brand new ‘breathtaking vision’ for the classic fairytale Red Riding Hood starring actress Amanda Seyfried.
The plot however seems to have changed a little and is a tad different to how we know it, most famously in the Grimm’s adaptation. There is no sight of Grandma and it includes far more risque material than previous incarnations of Red Riding Hood, as far as we can tell from the trailer the story simply appears to be that a medieval village is set upon by attacks from a wolf and err that’s it.
I have to say it does look like a film ‘from the director of Twilight‘ and I don’t actually hold that much hostility towards the Twilight saga, Here however it is far too obvious, every shot is overly lit and looks like a fashion advert with hideous amounts of backlight and very swishy dresses. The shots are swooping and the highly saturated colour just makes me sigh. Even from the trailer Hardwicke’s influences are clear, mostly reminding me of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula and M Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Not great heritage I have to say.
However Gary Oldman looks to be having an absolute ball, partaking in some good, old Thespian scenery chewing. The rest of the cast including Virginia Madsen and Julie Christie does sound promising. But who knows, it could be enjoyable or it could be terrible, it looks at the moment however to be leaning on the side of terrible.