Red Riding Hood

[meganbmoore]

So, I just watched the new Red Riding Hood movie.  It was a bit slow paced, but generally pretty good (and ridiculously pretty and OMG THERE WAS SO MUCH SNOW I WANT SOME IT'S 11 PM HERE AND 94 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!!  Uhm...the movie was very pretty.) and less about The Boyfriend than previews indicated and I was all cozy and happy...and then we got to the end.
 

 

And in the end, we basically learn that the movie was about the villain punishing women.  "Daughter, you aren't really mine?  I KEEL YOU!  Wife, you were pregnant when we got married and chose to keep quiet rather than probably literally get thrown out with nothing but the clothes on our back?  I SCAR YOU!  Mom, you just figured out that dad and I are werewolves?  I KEEL YOU!!  Other Daughter, don't you want to be just like me?"

Uhm, yeah.  I do like that Valerie stopped and got brother Solomon's hand to use against the wolf, though.  Also, I can't believe that they kept the part of some versions where the wolf feeds her grandma as a stew.

I did like that she stabbed Peter JUST IN CASE, but wish that she had killed him later, after he was bitten.  Not because i disliked Peter (I was basically neutral about him and Henry both, though h did annoy me at times) but because I prefer that sort of ending.  Premptively stopping someone who will probably kill an untold number of people >>> Epic True Love Forever.  Also, did they actually stop to have sex  in the PRETTY PRETTY SNOW before filling her father's gut with rocks and dumping him in the river, or was that just Valerie daydreaming or something?
 

Comments

[bigbrasskey]

ahaha, I COMPLETELY FORGOT to mention that. I remember that I read something really confusing about that scene beforehand, and then during the scene I was like 'wait..what is...' and he's like I DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT HER I ~COULDN'T CONTROL MYSELF~ and then I basically sublimated it from my conscious.

'Red Riding Hood: Amanda Seyfried's face' is basically my reaction to the movie.

I got attached to Peter during the adorable bb!hunters scene and the immediate aftermath, and then throughout the rest of the movie I was like :( :( but when he made her happy again I forget about it. I BASICALLY DID NOT PAY ALL THAT MUCH ATTENTION TO HIM I GUESS.

I...think it was just her imagination? But then, I think there was also an extended version that had him coming back to her with a baby, so. I don't like that version, though I'm not sure why.

[meganbmoore]

Because there's a high probablity that their kid would become a werewolf, or possibly go insane due to being supernatural on both sides?

I kept getting distracted by Peter's Very Modern And Gelled Hair.

[bigbrasskey]

Upon reflection, I think it was partly that after Valerie's fight to regain and control her own agency throughout the film, making the choice to wait because it was set up as what she wanted (combined with a higher degree of freedom) - after readily participating in the climactic fight - made his departure still just a part of her story for me. But the whole 'baby' thing was a little too 'pat gender roles' for me, because that is such a trope and while sometimes I enjoy it in execution, (see: Cimorene) I don't generally enjoy it as a culmination to a young woman's freedom-seeking narrative. I don't know, something about the no-baby storyline just left me with a feeling like 'yeah, he left and she totally went out into the woods and had the freedom to live her life not under anybody's control and settled down doing her own stuff and oh, she might not mind some nookie should she see that cute guy again' and the whole baby thing kind of felt like it...hijacked that from her, and made it about their relationship. (The voice-over says she has to move out to the forest because of it.)

I KNOW. His little mohawk thing was hilarious. It looked perilously close to a hairdo out of Yu-Gi-Oh, for goodness' sake!