Tuesday, March 15, 2011

March Movie Madness: Hoodwinked and The Reef Blu-Ray Review

The Random Mommy tradition is to ignore the basketball games and watch movies in March. The boys and I have watched a few so far and we'll review some of them this month, with a great giveaway coming later this week!

Hoodwinked
Hoodwinked was released on Blu-ray/DVD Combo last month and we watched the movie coincidentally right after H&R heard Little Red Riding Hood during story time at Korean school. I think it helped that they were a bit familiar with the story beforehand because the movie is not the classic fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood.  Right when the Woodsman jumps into the room to save Red from the Wolf the story takes a very different turn. The police cordon off Grandma's cottage and an amphibious investigator named Nicky Flippers (voiced by David Ogden Stiers) begins interrogating the suspects: A Little Red in bell-bottoms (Anne Hathaway), a Wolf turned investigative journalist (Patrick Warburton), an extreme sport enthusiast Granny (Glenn Close), and a "Woodsman" (Jim Belushi), each of whom have very different reasons for ending up in that cottage living room.

There were some moments that were too scary for R (big bad Wolf and craaaaaaazy Bunny) but H watched without any issues, although all of the popular culture references, of which there are many, were over his head. This is definitely an animated film that adults will get and children can enjoy. I especially loved "The Schnitzel Song" but I don't think kids will really get why it's so hilarious. If you're looking for a film that will engage you and entertain your kids, definitely check out Hoodwinked.

The Reef
The Reef (released last week on Blu-ray/DVD Combo) is the story of Pi, a young fish who suffers a great loss and moves from Boston to what I think is the Great Barrier Reef where he falls in love with a beautiful fish named Cordelia and angers the resident shark bully, Troy. The Reef was the first Hollywood feature-length, all computer generated film ever made in Korea (Be the Reds!), winning the Film Advisory Board Award of Excellence. The voice talent includes Freddie Prinze Jr. as Pi, Evan Rachel Wood as Cordelia, Fran Drescher as Pearl, Donal Logue as Troy, and Rob Schneider as a variety of sea creatures including Nerissa. The movie follows Pi as he trains with the wise old turtle Nerissa in order to defeat Troy. Unfortunately R was so scared that he fell asleep during the opening scene (could be pretty traumatic for little ones) and there were some other shark and shipwreck scenes that were scary for H as well. But H still wanted to see it all the way through so I think the story is compelling enough to keep a child's interest. If your children enjoyed the other under the sea animated films, The Reef would be a good fit for them. 

I did not receive compensation for this post. I did receive product samples to facilitate my review.

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