Culture

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke. (1/5).
This movie provides the perfect platform on which to rant about everything Hollywood. It's hard to believe this piece of shit was directed by the same person who gave birth to Lords Of Dogtown, but her more recent disaster (yup, Twilight) is a much more obvious influence. Lo-and-behold, the protagonist girl is found torn between two guys, and there's a fucking werewolf in the middle of it all. Basically the wolf goes nom nom nom, the village goes hunting for it, and it turns out to be someone related to Valerie (nope, I didn't know the name of the protagonist until now either). And in the middle of all this, Gary Oldman gets to torture a retarded boy inside a giant metal torture elephant.

Honestly, if you were disappointed by Tim Burton's attempt at Alice In Wonderland, this will bend you over and hit you on the ass with a spatula for expecting Hollywood directors with such an awesome palette (a fairy tale with the potential to be disturbing) to actually make the most of it. Like Burton’s attempt, Red Riding Hood gets off the start line then stalls.
 
The set was almost cool but very plastic and Disneyland-esque. Somehow Hardwicke managed to complicate the plot by adding Freudian psychology, with Valerie's sister accidentally falling in love with her half-brother. ‘Cause it turns out her Mum cheated and stuff. In essence it’s just a failed teenage girl heart-throb movie.

Never before have I seen such shit acting, and if you’ve ever seen Letters To Juliet or Mamma Mia, it’s very hard to take Amanda Seyfried seriously. To make matters worse, one of the guys she fancies looks like a zombie.

A huge fact I can’t get over is that THE BUDGET WAS 42 MILLION DOLLARS! Seriously, rather than torturing us you could have saved a lot of World Vision children for that sort of money.
 
In a short attempt at being positive: I admit there were beautiful shots, but only as the credits rolled at the end. And the hood looks fucking cool.

But fuck me, I give up. It made Twilight look good.