I went and saw Hoodwinked last night. It’s a somewhat embellished movie about the story of Litte Red Riding Hood as told from the perspective of Little Red, the Wolf (who doesn’t get chopped open), the Woodsman, and Granny. The police detain them and question them to try and figure out who has been stealing all the recipes from the bakeries in the forest.

The animation was horrible! I spent a little bit of time messing around with computer animation back in high school and it’s given me the small bit of understanding I need to be able to tell where they went wrong.

First is their use of texturing. When constructing, for instance, a tree in the computer you can either put it together piece by piece, or slap a few shapes together and cover them images that look like a trunk and leaves. In Hoodwinked, many many times, the animators just chose to slap some shapes together and coat them with these images. You see it in the trees. You see it in the backgrounds. You see it in the fur of the animals. Not everywhere, so you can’t say “it was a style”, but in all those places that it would have taken some time to do it right.

Then, I don’t know what it’s called, but has to do with the movement of the characters. Almost anytime the Wolf gets expressive in his lines, the outer edges of his muzzle move to emphasize the word. Good planning, poor execution. The outer fourth on each side of his muzzle seems to be its own “piece” of the character. That piece will move up, but the rest of the muzzle won’t change shape like it would in a normal body. I saw it in head movements too. Sometimes the head would move, but the neck stayed put.

There were times when the lighting was way off too, but I think you’ve heard enough and can get the picture. It’s almost like a final render of all the material was never done or the settings were set to “speed” instead of “quality”. Come on guys, in this day and age, you gotta put some time into what you’re doing.

Having said all that, the script was great! I honestly wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but it really delighted me. The mystery was easy to figure out, but what can you expect from a kids movie. Most of the jokes really weren’t all that original, but the timing and execution was perfect. The use of Patrick Warburton (Kronk from the The Emperor’s New Groove) as the voice of the Wolf was great, and Japeth the Goat was so funny.

I would consider this movie buy-worthy … except the animation sucks. So now, if I see this movie on the shelf at home I’ll be let down. Some other family can buy it … that’s fine! I’d probably even like to watch it with them. But I just can’t allow those close to me to have to explain why they supported this movie when they arrive at the bar of judgement.

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