Hoodwinked! is a vastly underrated animated comedy from 2005, and it’s easy to see why when just glancing at footage of the film without much context. Hoodwinked! is rarely considered among the best animated features of the 2000s, being outshone by the likes of Dreamworks and Pixar, leaving both modern and retrospective critics consistently unimpressed.

Hoodwinked! is a nonlinear crime drama in the vein of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction or Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, telling the classic fable of Little Red Riding Hood over and over again from multiple different characters’ perspectives. These include Anne Hathaway’s Red, Patrick Warburton’s Big Bad Wolf, Jim Belushi’s Woodsman, and Glenn Close’s Granny.

The overarching story revolves around the search for the idenтιтy of the so-called “Goody Bandit”, a thief who has been running pastry businesses into the ground by stealing their recipes. Red and Granny Puckett seem to be the thief’s next target, though investigative reporter Wolf W. Wolf is suspicious that they’re behind the corporate sabotage.

It’s up to the foppish British frog Detective Nicky Flippers to go over their stories one by one, slowly realizing the true culprit hopping right under their noses the whole time. After getting use out of the entertaining framing device, the film speeds into an action climax at the summit of a mountain.

Hoodwinked! Deserves Far More Credit Than Its Rotten Tomatoes Score Implies

The Comedy Of Hoodwinked! Is Overlooked Due To The Animation

On Rotten Tomatoes, Hoodwinked! maintains a pitiful 46% freshness rating, with the audience score only hovering around 56%, as well. However, this critical condemnation is a gross underestimation of the film’s true nature as a diamond in the rough, with Hoodinked! aging strangely well after two entire decades thanks to its wit and fast-paced humor.

The criticism of Hoodwinked! is dominated by one recurring issue that there’s no excusing; the animation. It’s impossible to deny that the animation of Hoodwinked! is extremely rough, even for the time it was made. The sterile woodland environments and bizarre-looking character models leave the film far from visually appealing, even compared to its contemporaries.

That being said, this amateurish level of animation is merely a symptom of the film’s inception. Hoodwinked! is unique for being created outside the bounds of any major 3D animated studio, such as Disney, Dreamworks, or Blues Sky Studios. Independently funded on a measly 8 million dollar budget, Hoodwinked! sourced its animation from the Philippines.

Thus, the animation of the film became an important sacrifice in maintaining the creative vision, leveling a very specific brand of humor that has aged incredibly well at undeserving audiences. Considering the film made a whopping 110 million, the lean budget at least proved to be financially successful, if not critically.

Hoodwinked! Was Called A Shrek Clone, But Is Quite Distinctive

Calling Hoodwinked! Derivative Of Dreamworks Isn’t Fair

Another common criticism often aimed at Hoodwinked! is how similar it is to the Shrek movies, with the first two films both preceding the fellow fairy tale parody. While it’s true that there is some obvious inspiration in the very concept of a folk tale adaptation laden with modern humor, Hoodwinked! does more than enough to keep itself distinctive from Shrek.

For one, Hoodwinked!‘s setting is overtly modern, with cameras, ski tournaments, and cable cars all playing important parts in the plot. Meanwhile, Shrek’s bizarre medieval world has to constantly find ways to justify its modern humor and references. Hoodwinked! is far less reliant on referential humor, instead mining comedy out of the performances and interconnected plotlines.

The comedy of Hoodwinked! is also perhaps less cynical than Shrek, willing to go for more muted, dry humor compared to the bombastic likes of Donkey or Puss in Boots. This is why the film has been able to age so gracefully in its witty script, though the animation continues to spoil like milk as the years go by, a necessary consequence of studio independence.

Distributor Interference Possibly Prevented Hoodwinked! From Being Even Better

The Entire Voice Cast Was Rebuilt From The Ground Up

It’s admirable that Hoodwinked! was willing to forgo better-looking animation in order to refuse to dull the shine of the uproariously funny and oddly laid-back script, as a major studio might have requested. However, that’s not to say there weren’t any compromises to be made over the course of production.

Hoodwinked! was independently produced by brothers Cory and Todd Edwards, though funding came from executive producer Maurice Kanbar. In the end, it was distribution from the infamous Weinstein Company that finally forced the Edwards brothers to make some creative changes, namely in the casting department.

Big-name voice actors like Tara Strong and Tom Kenny were replaced in droves, with celebrity names like Anne Hathaway, Xzibit, Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, and Anthony Anderson all coming in to lend their marquee value to the film’s poster. The Edwards brothers later expressed disappointment at the recasting, thinking it to be excessive.

If allowed to retain the original cast of seasoned voice actors with recognizable voices for major roles, Hoodwinked! might have been an ever better, leaner, and funnier triumph of independent creativity over the goliath animation тιтans of Hollywood. But thanks to its cheap animation and surface-level similarity to Shrek, Hoodwinked! remains tragically overlooked.