Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen") directs this reimagining of the classic fairy tale. Amanda Seyfried ("Chloe") plays Valerie, a grown-up version of the titular heroine. Valerie and her family live in a medieval village bordering woods inhabited by a ferocious werewolf, and for years a peaceful pact has kept the evil creature at bay. But now, the monster is thirsty for blood and the townsfolk are being picked off one by one. Meanwhile, Valerie has been betrothed to the blacksmith's son, but is secretly in love with the poor, lowly woodcutter boy she grew up with. Valerie must now choose who to give her heart to, but will she survive long enough to get her happily ever after? This film so shamelessly tries to cash in on the “Twilight” phenomenon that it’s embarrassing. From the hokey love triangle (complete with sincere good boy on one side and dangerous bad boy on the other), to the werewolves, to the wide sweeping shots of gorgeous, mountainous tree lines, it’s like Hardwicke followed her own template for creating an angsty-romantic-horror movie for the tween set. The similarities end there, though, and without a decent plot or characters to rely on, the story goes nowhere fast. Seyfried does her best naive-beauty-with-a-dark-side act, but comes across as insipid and prosaic. Then there’s the boys: Max Irons (son of Jeremy) is adequate as the unrequited (read: Jacob) side of the love triangle; Shiloh Fernandez, on the other hand, is so irritatingly surly all the time that it’s impossible to take him seriously. Lastly, I had to scratch my head at why the great Gary Oldman makes an appearance here… it seems he has developed a penchant recently for bad scary movies with supernatural forces at hand that only he has the power to stop. Or maybe he just likes to show up for quick scenes where he gets to make grand entrances in mechanical elephants and yell at everyone for being far less intelligent than he is. Who knows. Either way, this unimaginative and trite retelling is one bedtime story worth skipping.
2 out of 5 stars
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