Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil – Happily Ever Afters Guaranteed

I love fairy tales. Those are usually the stories that introduce us to the idea that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished – eventually. I also love stories based on fairy tales, giving us a new perspective and showing us that maybe things aren’t as black and white as they seem. I also like detective stories, which is what I loved about the original Hoodwinked. Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil picks up where the first movie left off, with the characters now working for the Happily Ever After agency, and Granny has been kidnapped by an evil witch.

The movie is full of twists that actually are set up from the opening credits, if you think about it, but you ignore it while you watch them. Sure, a misunderstood bad guy that isn’t really evil is just par for the course – but bad guys that you believe are good just because they were good in their fairy tales? That was a nice touch. There’s a lot of things going on in Hoodwinked Too, but I find Wolf’s story to be the most interesting. Does nobody notice how much Wolf hates himself? Well, Twitchy, but they’re best friends – and the best of best friends. Everyone is out to make Wolf feel even worse about himself in this movie, but Wolf handles it pretty well. Wolf is driven to do the right thing.

Speaking of Wolf, I liked his classic enemies the Three Little Pigs burning his house down. It was such overkill revenge. Twitchy did ask what Wolf did to make them so mad, and Wolf responded, “It’s a long story; I’ll tell you later.” He never did tell us later, but a part of me hopes that it’s based on the book The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by A. Wolf and not the real fairy tale, because Wolf is a good guy in the Hoodwinked universe – and the Three Little Pigs burned his house down. With a flame thrower. The scene also satiated the part of me that feels that fairy tale movies don’t have enough explosions.

Hoodwinked Too has a lot of fun background gags. There are also some visual gags I didn’t quite catch, because theaters don’t have pause buttons, that I can’t wait to see on DVD. One gag I did see that I thought was cute was that Twitchy chews Little Red gum. There is a very dramatic story going on, with Red trying to save her Granny from harm while discovering herself, and Wolf trying to do the right thing and everyone making him feel bad for it, but I never really stopped laughing at the movie. The gags really helped the movie avoid getting too serious, and the movie was not afraid to lampoon itself, with lines such as, “You’ve been Hoodwinked…. Two!” and Wolf commenting on how nobody reads books because everyone watches movie sequels.

One of the biggest things that the first Hoodwinked was criticzed on was its animation. Let’s forget that Hoodwinked was an independent film and not a big budget studio animation – the animation got it a lot of negative feedback. The animation in Hoodwinked Too is not much better. I watched it in 2D, and I really can’t imagine watching it in 3D. I don’t think it was meant for 3D. However, Hoodwinked Too tells a good story, so the animation didn’t bother me. It was like watching a movie made five or ten years ago on screen today. The animation is just a little behind the times. It didn’t take away from the story.

The only complaint I really have about Hoodwinked Too is Twitchy. Twitchy was my favorite character in the first movie because he was so amped up. They tone him down a lot in this movie, which is weird, because he gets so many lines this time around – and you can understand them all. It’s like Twitchy has become one of the Chipmunks. It’s not Twitchy at all. They try to make up for it by proving that he’s quite the lady’s man and making him a great friend to Wolf, but it just doesn’t feel like Twitchy anymore.

I did enjoy the voice cast of Hoodwinked Too. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Hayden Pantierre taking over the role of Red from Anne Hathaway, but Pantierre may be the better Red. I don’t know what it is, but I liked her voice better. Martin Short also replaced Jim Belushi as Kirk, but I was indifferent to that.

There were new characters in the movie, and I loved their performances.  Bill Hader and Amy Poehler were Hansel and Gretel. A lifetime of knowing Hansel and Gretel as the victims made me forget my most important rule in watching movies – never trust Bill Hader. In everything I’ve seen him in, no matter how much I think Bill Hader’s character is trustworthy, he is always like, “Surprise! I’m a crazy person!” Hoodwinked Too was no exception. I can’t even remember the last time I saw Amy Poehler portray a villain in a movie – it might have been as far back as Blades of Glory, but she pulls it off well.

Joan Cusack was the evil witch, Verushka. I’m not going to lie, I just love Joan Cusack’s voice. I will watch any movie she’s in just to hear her talk. She’s also a really good actress, though, and she delivered here. Verushka was crazy, yes, and we could sense that, but she was also vulnerable, which Cusack did a wonderful job of portraying.  Another role I enjoyed was Brad Garrett as the Giant, because there is no one in the world more perfect for the role of the Giant than Brad Garrett. He has that deep, booming voice that makes you think, “This guy, if provoked, and even if not, might actually eat me.” I also enjoyed Danny Pudi as Little Boy Blue because, well, it’s Danny Pudi. What’s not to love about him?

I enjoy that Hoodwinked Too did not seem to be made with kids in mind, but made kid friendly. Many of the jokes were based on things adults would get, but not kids. What kid would get Boing Boing’s, “Hello, Clarice,” or fully understand the awesomeness behind Cheech and Chong being two of the Three Little Pigs? However, all curse words being replaced with “Muffins” and “Schnitzel” was cute.

As much as I liked Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil, it may be one of those “better on DVD” movies. I did not have a pause button to catch everything I would have liked to catch. However, I enjoyed the story, and I had a great laugh. The animation was lacking, and Twitchy didn’t feel like Twitchy anymore, but other than that I was truly entertained.