Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

3D doesn't make this clunker any more enjoyable.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 23, 2011

It's not just a fairy tale, it's an adventure.

If originality is the spice of life, then Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil is the wrong ingredient. Director Mike Disa's bland, uneventful, slow-paced, tries-too-hard animated film is the woefully inadequate followup to the halfway charming Hoodwinked. It falls completely flat, certainly not adding anything to the series or the animated genre at-large, instead leaving audiences with a sour taste in their mouths. And the movie is all about recovering a secret, almighty powerful recipe to boot. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil is so off that it needs to be scrapped, the recipe thrown away, and the entire thing reworked or maybe given up on entirely. It's not even close to being figuratively edible; it's not just shy a pinch of this or a dab of that. No, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil is so bad that even gallons of chocolate syrup, mounds of sugar, piles of frosting, or a heaping helping of sprinkles couldn't even begin to cover up the foul taste this one leaves in the mouth. From its horrid pacing to its uninspired animation, there's almost nothing here of value. The fairy tale characters-meet-the-21st century is at least somewhat novel, but this is a paper tiger recipe, one that looks good on the cover of the cookbook but that tastes far worse than even those cardboard-textured "healthy" frozen pizzas that merely replicate the basic look of the real thing.

Too bad that's not Pinhead's Puzzle Box...it would have made for a more interesting movie.

Four heroes -- Little Red Riding Hood (voiced by Hayden Panettiere), Granny Puckett (voiced by Glenn Close), The Big Bad Wolf (voiced by Patrick Warburton), and little overly-caffeinated Twitchy the Squirrel (voiced by Cory Edwards) -- have defeated Boingo the Evil Bunny. All is well with the world...or is it? Red has excused herself from the team to train with the venerable Sisters of the Hood where she learns that the most powerful secret recipe on the planet, the one that absolutely could not fall into the wrong hands under any circumstances -- the recipe for a special formulation of truffle -- has been stolen. Meanwhile, the rest of the group, working for the secret organization known as HEA -- the Happily Ever After Agency -- has undertaken a dangerous mission to rescue Hansel (voiced by Bill Hader) and Gretel (voiced by Amy Poehler) from the gingerbread house occupied by an evil witch (voiced by Joan Cusack). Without Red, the mission goes terribly wrong. The witch escapes with Hansel, Gretel, and a new prisoner, Granny Puckett. It's up to Red to find her missing teammate, rescue the children, and discover the connection between the kidnappings and the missing recipe before it's too late.

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil plays in the same zip code as Shrek as an animated movie that dares turn traditional fairy tales inside out. It takes things a step further, though, placing much-cherished storybook characters in the modern-day world where they've formed an alliance of sort and make use of S.W.A.T. team tactics, embark on Mission: Impossible-style raids, and employ cutting-edge technology to save the day. It's an idea clever enough to make even the most ardent James Bond fan drool with the possibilities, but there's just one problem: the execution is terrible. Whether the completely uninspired digital animation that's not even quite on-par with the decade-old first Shrek movie or the lazily-written and halfhearted cliché-riddled plot line, there's just nothing to like about Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil outside of the most fundamentally basic idea behind the movie.

The heart of the problem comes down to the movie just trying too hard to be ultra-hip, up with the times, and incredibly generic. Yes, there seems to be a concentrated effort to make this movie as unimaginatively cliché as possible. When asked to cook up a recipe, a character says in a low voice in a darkened room, "I'll need a titanium mixing bowl." The line is followed by an ominous crack of thunder. Really? It's more eye-rolling than smile-inducing, and even all of the little inside jokes and winks and nods to other films fall completely flat because the movie is so contextually, thematically, and emotionally vacant. Once the novelty of little animals running around with laser-sighting devices wears off, the movie does nothing to hold audience interest. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil is so routine that its every move is completely predictable, and the characters do and say everything expected of an animated adventure pulled straight from a plot that's better suited for a Saturday morning cartoon than a feature-length picture. Even the voice actors seem completely disinterested; gone from the series are veteran Actors Anne Hathaway and Jim Belushi, and the end result is a passable roster that provides just enough faux- emotion to get the job done; just don't expect the quality work found in Shrek, Ice Age, and the better movies of this style.

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Anchor Bay enters the Blu-ray 3D fray with Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, and the results are predictably acceptable but far from extraordinary. The 2D-only release sported a fine 1080p transfer that was pretty much lacking thanks only to the inherent quality of the animation. That carries over into the 3D presentation. This one is serviceably bland; there's little here beyond general depth, and even then the image never really captures the same sense of natural space as the superior animated 3D titles. The film opens with a storybook lying flat on a table; there's an obvious sense of space from the table to the top of the book whether it's open or closed. The nighttime raid that follows squeezes out some perceptible depth, a rarity with blackened or very dark backgrounds. Longer shots with more complex animation -- the overhead shot of the lounge where Jimmy Ten Strings performs, for instance -- enjoys a very nice "realistic" scope and scale. A staircase seems to extend back into the screen in one shot, but the effect is somewhat lessened by the innate softness that characterizes the further steps. There are no real "pop out of the screen" moments; a missile shoots towards the audience at one point, but it hardly seems to penetrate the screen. All in all, this is a very average, very plain, but baseline effective 3D image.

As for the image's more generalized attributes, it stacks up quite well against the 2D-only image (also included on a separate disc identical to the standalone release). The transfer yields good strong details -- when the film allows. Faces and more complex textures such as city street and sidewalk pavement remain flat, with a few scattered niceties in the form of wooden planks on the bridge where Red fights a troll early in the film. Still, the image is decidedly lacking in that area, but fault the feature and not the transfer. Colors are accurate and pleasant, whether Red's bright cape or Jimmy's polished golden mug. Black levels yield mostly accurate shades, though they appear to lighten up in a few scenes. Banding is evident but not detrimentally so, and blocking is mostly a non factor. Again, the transfer is only as good as the source; Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil has a very cheap, lower-end feel to it, and that's readily evident from the beginning. All things considered, however, it could be worse. The 3D is fair but never really pops, and the general quality of the transfer isn't lessened when combined with the added third viewing dimension.

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil features the same frustrating DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack that accompanies the aforementioned 2D-only release. While clarity leaves little to be desired, the track is completely lacking in volume and energy at reference levels. It plays almost timidly, like it's afraid to really stand up and do what's required of it. Even heavier sound effects -- an explosion, the roar of a jet engine, the zipping of a motorcycle -- seem underpowered, but the basic delivery in terms of directionality, spacing, and the like is fine. Likewise, surround use is sporadic at best, and the track never really does much to draw the audience into the film. On the other hand, dialogue is crisp and accurate as it flows from the center channel while music enjoys a full front-half delivery, but again, though, both sound a little tinny and underpowered. Make sure to crank this one up a bit past normal levels.

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil arrives on Blu-ray 3D with the same handful of mostly inconsequential standard definition extras found on the 2D release. However, the package does include the 2D disc (where all of the extras may be found) and a digital copy. Interviews with the voice cast and storyboard comparisons represent the highlights.

• Music Videos (480p): I Can Do It Alone by Hayden Panettiere (3:34), You Know It by Lavay Cole (3:02), and Perfect Two by CeeJ (3:13).
• The Voices (480p, 19:13): Individual voice cast members discuss their work on the film. Included are Hayden Panettiere as Red, Patrick Warburton as Wolf, Heidi Klum as Heidi, Wayne Newton as Jimmy 10-Strings, and David Ogden as Nicky Flippers.
• Storyboard Sequences (480p, 4:29): Bridge and HEA Invasion.
• Production Artwork (1080p).
• Hoodwinked Too! Video Game Teasers (480p, 0:41): Red's Escape Mobile Game Teaser and Decoder Game Teaser.
• Blu-ray 2D Copy.
• Digital Copy: Sampled on an iPhone 4, the image yields the same general feel as the Blu-ray. It's adequate, but details are naturally lacking, colors are fair but not vibrant, and depth is absent. Blocky backgrounds are rare. The audio track is adequate as well; it's somewhat underpowered and tinny, but it gets the job done, delivering fair dialogue and a few zippy left-to-right sound effects.
• DVD Copy.

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Yikes, is this movie ever bad. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil is a real drag, a movie with a good idea but terrible execution to show for it. Once the novelty of storybook characters engaged in super-secret 21st century spy work wears off, audiences are left with a cliché-riddled plot, equally unimaginative dialogue, decade-old-in-appearance animation, and lazy voice work. There's nothing to like about this one except its relatively compact runtime, but the movie is so miserable that it feels twice as long as it is. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray 3D release of Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil features a 1080p Blu-ray 3D transfer that features fair depth but little more, an underpowered lossless soundtrack, and only a few throwaway extras, none of which are exclusive to the 3D release. Skip it.