Red Riding Hood (12a)

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Julie Christie

Astonishingly awful.

If Catherine Hardwicke had been asked by the studio to give them another Twilight she couldn't have obliged more slavishly. Her reimagining of the fairytale is at once flat and hysterical, set in a village that's a Disneyfied version of Middle Ages peasant hardship, where everyone has perfect hair and clear skin. The place is menaced first by a werewolf, then by Gary Oldman as a witchfinder, or rather wolf-finder, general. Meanwhile, red-cloaked maiden Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), like Kristen Stewart in the vampire saga, must choose between two suitors, both sporting requisite hurt looks and boy-band hunkiness. Social and sexual tension is nil, thus making a perfect fit with the clawless drama.