Red Riding Hood (2011) 
 
 The bluenose brigade at the Motion Picture Association of America has stamped “ Red Riding Hood ” with a PG-13 rating for “violence and creature terror, and some sensuality.” Certainly this goofily amusing screen fairy tale includes bloodshed, but it’s generally tamer than its often-gruesome source. It’s hard to know, for instance, if Ms. Hardwicke, a former production designer, didn’t notice that the clothing looks straight from the costume department, or whether she (or her producers) didn’t want to turn off their presumptive audience with anything, you know, old. All that amused me was a dream sequence where Grandma says, “The better to eat you with.” I'm asking myself, “How can Red Riding Hood dream about dialogue in her own fairy tale when she hasn't even gone over the hill and through the dale to grandmother's house yet?” 
 
 
 
 The movie was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who made the first "Twilight" film. "Red Riding Hood" opens with computer-generated shots of hundreds of square miles of forests, dotted here and there by grim, stubby castles. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke; written by David Leslie Johnson; director of photography, Mandy Walker; edited by Nancy Richardson; music by Brian Reitzell and Alex Heffes; production design by Tom Sanders; costumes by Cindy Evans; produced by Jennifer Davisson Killoran, Leonardo DiCaprio and Julie Yorn; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.  Red Riding Hood (PG-13) Ebert: Users: 
 
 Red Riding Hood BY ROGER EBERT / March 10, 2011 March 10, 2011 Cast & Credits Valerie Amanda Seyfried 
 
 Father Solomon Gary Oldman 
 
 Father Auguste Lukas Haas 
 
 Grandmother Julie Christie 
 
 Peter Shiloh Fernandez 
 
 Cesaire Billy Burke 
 
 Henry Max Irons 
 
 Suzette Virginia Madsen 
 
 
 
 Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Catherine Hardwicke.
– Catherine Hardwicke’s take on Red Riding Hood, the classic story doused in teen angst and good looks, is certainly riding the zeitgeist—but it never really enters the woods, critics say: The film is “gorgeously shot, smartly conceived, cleverly cast, badly executed—the lush medieval beauty here is at best only skin deep,” writes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. “Sometimes, it's literate and lofty. More of the time, it's mind-numbingly simplistic and served up on a platter like leftovers.” Imagine the story conference, suggests Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Hey! Let's switch the vampires with a werewolf and recycle the theme of a virgin attracted to a handsome but dangerous hunk, only let's get two hunks!” Plus, it’s “dreadfully serious about a plot so preposterous, it demands to be filmed by Monty Python.” In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis is fairly positive, calling the film a “goofily amusing screen fairy tale.” But when it comes to the darker themes, “what sharp teeth Ms. Hardwicke doesn’t have.”