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Better Read than "Red"

Little Red Riding Hood is one of those Brothers Grimm tales that you've unlikely given much thought to since the age of, say, seven or eight. It's not really the Brothers' most memorable work, with its young, crimson-clad darling, who just wants to go see her grannie. So there's a lot of room for interpretation, given the task of adapting it for the big screen. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of room for failure... which is about all director Catherine Hardwicke's "Red Riding Hood" achieves.

The story is really only loosely based on the fairy tale and centers around a distractingly luminous Amanda Seyfried as Valerie, our red cloaked ingénue. She is caught in a love triangle between her paramour, the smoldering woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), and her promised, prosperous blacksmith Henry (Max Irons). It's winter in their tiny medieval town in an amazingly picturesque corner the world that pretty much screams FAIRY TALE. A town that is plagued by a wolf. But not just any wolf: a werewolf.

Not that any of them know that, until Valerie's sister Lucie is slain, and Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) - the expert in these matters - is summoned to help with the pest control. Twenty minutes in and things have gotten ridiculous. Solomon brings with him his children, a full complement of big black guards and a life-sized, hollow, brazen elephant. Very grand and not very well explained, it is the perfect symbol of all that's wrong with this film. The wolf does eventually find Valerie and it turns out she's the only one in town that can have a conversation with it. The townspeople are an impressionable bunch, and everyone quickly turns against her... until they inexplicably change their collective mind and protect her.

Julie Christie is right at home in her isolated snowy abode as Grandmother, whose house (of course) is over the river and through the woods. And while stuff happens there, it's all a little secondary to the plot, which haltingly twitches its way through about ninety minutes of absurdity until the big reveal: Who is the wolf that hunts these people and why does it want Valerie? (And how is that she always has such good hair?)

Okay, that last one is never answered, but Ms Hardwicke (of "Twilight" notoriety) does make it very clear which characters you should be paying attention to. They're the pretty ones. It's as if someone enforced the law of conservation of beautiful actors - you can only have so much attractiveness in one film. Or all the hair and makeup and costume people were only allowed to work on those top-billed. The soft-focus shots of Ms Seyfried only serve to drive the point home. It's a little distracting.

Style over substance is the theme of the day and "Red" has style to spare. It's a shame that writer David Johnson (who also penned "Orphan") didn't take a little more care in telling the original story (which has, mind you, been around for hundreds of years) or even in giving the story a little more meat. Still, much like the tale it was inspired by, it's short. And with an edgy soundtrack and smoky visuals, it may at least distract you from how terrible it truly is.