Ruining 'Red Riding Hood'

Taking a bloody dagger to centuries of folklore, the producers of "Red Riding Hood" have shamelessly turned the "Little Red Riding Hood" legend into a carbon copy of the "Twilight" movies. It ultimately fails because it steals all of the worst elements of those films and none of the better ones.

The similarities start with the director, Catherine Hardwicke, who made the first "Twilight" movie and here reproduces nearly the exact same visual style. Bella's father (Billy Burke) is Red's father here.

Also lifted from "Twilight": a love triangle plot in which both males are bland as they are handsome, horribly shot and even worse-edited action scenes a mediocre score that combines foreboding instrumental music with subpar indie rock and "horror" moments that are actually unintentionally hilarious.

Oh, and once again, no one has sex.

"Red Riding Hood" is set in what I guess is supposed to be an English village, although no one besides the villain and the wolf himself has an English accent. Amanda Seyfried is the heroine of the title, caught between sweet rich guy Henry (Max Irons), who she is to marry, and diminutive bad boy Peter (Shiloh Fernandez.) As in "Twilight," these are two very good-looking men who can't act a lick.

A big bad werewolf, as you may have gathered, is on the scene and threatening the town and he seems to have special designs on Little Red Riding Hood.

A possibly Vatican-connected werewolf wrangler (Gary Oldman) is brought in to help, but in what I'm guessing is some sort of half-hearted political allegory, all he does is sow fear among the populous.

Other than the love triangle plot, the film's central mystery becomes the werewolf's identity, and the script has a lot of fun with red herrings – just about everyone in the movie comes under suspicion at one point or another.

The suspects include Julie Christie (in the pivotal grandmother role), a teenaged "village idiot" who looks like an Andy Samberg digital-short character, and a gaggle of' Seyfriend friends/enemies who seem in the movie only as a nod to the actress' "Mean Girls" past.

Ultimately, what sinks the film is its tone.

It's pitched at a level of incredible seriousness, when it's a ridiculous story that's told poorly. The action scenes in particular are a disaster – shaky, blurry and impossible to follow. What should be the movie's most crucial moment – Red's first confrontation with the wolf – is handled so shabbily that I was laughing uproariously. So were most of the people around me.

The look is all wrong, too. "Twilight" at least had pretty scenery; this movie is art-directed to death.

Seyfried, a very talented actress, does what she can with limited material, while Oldman's performance is one of his worst - just a lot of directionless yelling. Only Christie, in a creepy turn as the grandmother, leaves any sort of impression at all.

Could Brothers Grimm-meets-Stephenie Meyer have worked under any circumstances? Probably not. But making the film utterly unconvincing and lifeless didn't help.

"Red Riding Hood," Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and starring Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Virginia Madsen and Julie Christie. Rated: PG-13; 1 hour, 49 minutes long.

"Red Riding Hood" is now playing at these local theaters:

UA King Of Prussia Stadium 16 & IMAX, 300 Goddard Blvd., King Of Prussia.

Regal Plymouth Meeting 10, 1011 West Ridge Pike, Conshohocken

Regal Marketplace at Oaks Stadium 24, 180 Mill Road, Oaks.