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** (PG)
Director: Mike Disa.
Cast: (voices of) Hayden Panettiere, Patrick Warburton, Glenn Close, Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, Joan Cusack, Cory Edwards.
BACK in 2006, Hoodwinked was a surprise hit, making over $100 million worldwide.
Costing a fraction of the big CG animations, it was an independent production that dared to mix it with Pixar and Blue Sky, while boldly ploughing similar terrain as Shrek, but in an interesting and innovative way.
But it wasn't without its flaws, and while some of those have been corrected in its annoyingly titled sequel, Hoodwinked Too! finds new mistakes to make, ultimately failing to live up to its best ideas once again.
At the end of the first film, the main characters (Red Riding Hood, her Granny and the Big Bad Wolf) had been drafted into the Happily Ever After agency and the sequel finds them on the case of kidnapping youngsters Hansel and Gretel (voiced by Saturday Night Live stars Hader and Poehler).
The investigation leads to a bigger case involving secret society The Sisterhood, their recipe for a superpower-creating dessert and the villains who want to gain those powers.
The best thing about the original film was its Rashomon-inspired retake on the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, where the familiar story became a whodunnit viewed from four different angles.
Hoodwinked Too! offers nothing as interesting in its plot, instead going for a flat-out action-adventure packed full of pop-culture gags, most of which fall flat.
Where it improves on its predecessor is in the looks category. The first Hoodwinked looked positively C grade compared to other CG movies and failed to do its smarter ideas justice - the sequel looks better, although only enough to bump it up to a B and its visuals once do its best moments an injustice.
The characters and themes are also better second time around and are the film's strongest point. Red (voiced by Panettiere, replacing Anne Hathaway) is a well-rounded role model who is interestingly flawed, and even Wolf (Warburton) comes across as better developed. Plus the can't-fail Disney themes of co-operation, friends, and forging your own path give the film such much-needed depth.
But it's just not funny enough and entertaining enough. Shrek's mining of the fairytale backdrop makes Hoodwinked feel passé, as do some of the pop culture jokes. Like the first film, it's only sporadically amusing.
Parts of this sequel work, but again it's a disappointment.