***/*****
Everyone has heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood (Anne Hathaway) – sweet innocent kid with fashion sense, the big bad wolf (Patrick Warburton) - a cross-dressing carnivore, the unsuspecting feeble old granny (Glenn Close), and the mighty woodsman (James Belushi). It’s a classic tale of good vs. evil with good triumphing in the end. Or so we have been led to believe all this time. Detective Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Steirs) doesn’t think this is such an open and shut case and he thinks this “domestic disturbance” may be linked to the “Goody Bandit” who has been stealing recipes for all the sweats and yummies in the forest. He and Chief Grizzly (Xzibit) question all the suspects starting with Red.
It turns out that everyone has a different version of what happened and each account reveals some secrets about the storyteller (some more interesting than others). When all the pieces of the puzzle are revealed, are they any closer to the truth about the Goody Bandit? Or do they need to review the stories to see the common threads?
They have done a marvelous job spinning a fairy tale classic into a modern crime drama with lots of humor. The writing is clever, funny and once you get past the first song it zips along at a pace only cartoons could keep up with. The supporting characters are very entertaining from Twitchy (Cory Edwards) the squirrelly side-kick with way too much energy, to Boingo (Andy Dick) the fuzzy long-eared bunny, Japeth the Goat (Benjy Gaither) who sings instead of speaking, and Woolworth the Sheep (Chazz Palminteri) an informant in sheep’s clothing. Plus you get a gaggle of police creatures, foreign bad guys and woodland inhabitants - they all add humor and visual interest.
This is definitely designed to hold up to multiple kid viewings because there is so much going on that you would notice something different each time. It does have a lot of adult humor that may go over the heads of little children but not so much that it’ll lose their attention.
