The Movie
The original Hoodwinked shook up the familiar saga of Little Red Hood with wit and lots of Hollywood action, adding elaborate backstories and multiple points of view. We ended with the promise of more adventures to come, and six years later we have Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil.
Red, Granny, the Big Bad Wolf and his little sidekick Twitchy all turned out to be remarkably brave, effective crimefighters, and they have now joined Nicky Flippers' HEA or "Happily Ever After" Agency, a secret organization protecting the world from all manner of danger. Most recently, young siblings Hansel and Gretel have been abducted by a witch with a penchant for baking up unusual treats, and so the HEA is dispatched for the rescue.
Unfortunately, with Red off training with an exclusive sisterhood, Granny is captured during the mission, and forced to make a mystical truffle that will make the eater invincible. A rescue of the rescuer is underway in The Big City this time, but the real enemy is not who we expect, with greater power and resources than our heroes have ever faced.
We're reunited with familiar characters and introduced to some new ones, almost all from the pages of Grimm and Mother Goose but with a clever new spin, naturally. The movie gets bogged down a bit by its own complexity, and a subplot about the friction between Wolf and Red grows tiresome rather quickly, but ample little inside jokes make it all quite a bit of fun for young and old.
The Picture
The quality of the animation has greatly improved over that of the predecessor, with costumes and faces and more that are now rife with detail, at least in some shots, although movement can still be a little stiff. The 16:9 image is marked by some significant edge enhancement, while the 3D effect often vacillates between many simple camera angles--a lone character standing in front of a distant, static background--and some so dynamic they play like a theme park thrill ride. In between are some happy surprises, like the faint layer of dirt on the glass when Red and Wolf visit Boingo in the insane asylum. So the effort is definitely visible here.
The Sound
This sequel has been kicked up a notch, with DTS-HD Master Audio that is a marvel of sharp, wild action across the 5.1-channel soundfield, with lots of kickin' bass to back it up. At the same time, the dialogue (recorded in multiple sessions in disparate locations) all comes together cleanly and credibly, with fine touches like room resonance evident. But for sonic setpieces, check out the three little pigs with a rocket launcher in Chapter 7, or the huge final battle.
The Extras
The 2D Blu-ray and the included DVD of Hoodwinked Too! offer the same features. There are three music videos (about ten minutes total), interviews with five of the voice actors about their characters (19 minutes total) and video of storyboards for two sequences, with audio (four-and-a-half minutes). Production artwork is presented as a self-guided slideshow, in HD on the Blu-ray. All else is in standard definition.
The four-disc combo pack also includes a Digital Copy for iTunes and Windows Media.
Final Thoughts
Fun, witty, and available to watch in just about any format we could ask for, HD or otherwise, Hoodwinked Too! is a more than adequate Blu-ray bundle for modern comedy/animation buffs.
Product Details
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