Not All Fairytales Go by the Book

I've never been so anxious to see a movie before. Ever.

Sure, I was really excited for Tangled, but I kind of knew what to expect from it. I knew that she was going to go outside her tower to go to the kingdom with a thief named Flynn Rider. While that wasn't the entire plotline, I had a bit of an idea of where the movie was going. With Hoodwinked 2, I didn't.

In some ways, I was pleasantly surprised. And in others, a little let down. But I'll get to that later.

Hoodwinked 2 (or Too, as the posters say) takes place sometime after the Red and the gang join the HEA in the original Hoodwinked. Red has gone away for some "secret training" at an undisclosed location, leaving the team in a bit of disaray. Meanwhile, Wolf and Granny have been called out on a mission to help save two kidnapped children, Hansel and Gretel. Seeing that "Red Riding Rogue" didn't show up again, Wolf takes matters into his own hands... er, paws. And everything goes horribly wrong.

Cut to Red, who is far far far far far far far away out in the mountains, finishing her training with a covert group called The Sisters of the Hood. But it's interrupted when she gets an urgent call from Nicky Flippers, the head of the HEA. Her granny has been kidnapped, and he teams up Red and Wolf together for the rescue mission. But more is on the line than it seems.

The story was well done, although some things were kinda a stretch for me, and I was engaged almost the whole time. It was especially cool to see how all the characters worked together. When Red and Wolf are partnered up, they both have their own way of doing things. They really rub up against each other before the conflict is resolved, and some interesting character development is introduced. There are some pretty nice plot twists as well, and most of the jokes were hilarious.

Now to the downside of the story. While the majority of it is good, some parts of it seem to have little or no meaning. While this may have been done on purpose (to direct the main characters about where to go next), I found it a little disappointing. Especially when Boingo shows up, a la Cats and Dogs 2.

One thing that gets me is that this movie was originally delayed because of "glitches in the animation" or something like that. And it seems that even with a year of extra time to fix it, it survived. Although how obvious it is probably depends on the person, there are some problems lip-syncing the animation to the voice acting. I think it's mostly just at the beginning, though.

When the credits began to roll, I began to wonder if the filmmakers were trying to send the audience a message with the song they played at the end. "You got Hoodwinked Too, but you got hoodwinked, too. We got you good. Yeah, you know it!"

I don't know, maybe I'm being too nitpicky. Maybe I'm such a fangirl of the original that the flaws of the sequel stand out more. Or perhaps my expectations were higher than they should've been. It just feels that this movie has the potential to be more than what showed up on the big screen. :/

So I'll end by saying that it wasn't the best sequel I've ever seen, but it has its good moments and is worth a watch. If you want to introduce someone to the Hoodwinked franchise, though, show them the original.