The classic "little" has been removed from the original title, and director Catherine Hardwicke has put a pubertal spin on the old folk tale, making it dark, psychological and sexy.
Once upon a time, a small girl in a red cloak scurried through the dark forest to deliver pastries to her worryingly lupine-looking grandma. Now the girl in question is Valerie, played by Amanda Seyfried, a so called 'babe', who lives in a quaintly imagined medieval European village, most likely German, menaced by a werewolf that lives in the outlying forest. She is in love with sexy bad boy Peter played by practically unknown, Shiloh Fernandez but promised in marriage to equally dishy posh Henry played by Martina Cole's The Runaway star, Max Irons, who is supposed to be rich, and yet seems to have the somewhat pleb job of ironmonger, presumably to show us his sweaty pecs. I am not going to lie to you, my adoring public but I fancy Max Irons. He is a beautiful specimen of a man, son of the ex heartthrob and Hollywood heavyweight, Jeremy Irons. Whilst watching this film, I had to stop myself from screaming at the screen when Valarie ignored this handsome Prince. Henry... Call Me!
Gary Oldman plays the priest-cum-beast-catcher who comes to the village when the werewolf runs amok. He tells the villagers that this terrible creature is one of them transformed: the beast within! But to the suspicion of one and all, Valerie discovers that she can actually communicate with the werewolf. She's a bit of a wolf whisperer. And of course, she's kind of attracted to this menacing, romantic outsider. But how to update the basic, climactic events of the Red Riding Hood tale? The whole "gobbling up" thing can of course only translate into sex, but in true Twilighty style, the film has a tense need to refrain from going all the way. A roll in the hay, during a village celebration, appears ambiguously to end in Valerie not actually having sex.
This film is, of course, far too cool to give us a wolf with a comedy frilly hat on its head, doing the comedy old-lady voice, with the duvet pulled demurely up to its neck. Hardwicke does actually use the famous "what-big-teeth-you-have" dialogue but in an ironic sort of way, and even flirts unconvincingly with the idea that Julie Christie's gran is the wolf. But we all know that it would just be to obvious.
Sex. Sex. Sex. But lacks depth, watch it once but not a 'buy on dvd' sort of film.
My Star Rating:
7.5/10 *
No comments:
Post a Comment