Pointy, But Not Sharp Enough: Red Riding Hood Movie Trailer Official (HD)

Just as pharmaceutical companies need to keep developing new meds - even as existing ones continue to hook millions (keeping the pipeline full); so Hollywood execs and producer types need to keep the new franchises coming.

With the multi-billion dollar Twighlight and Harry Potter franchises now about to head to the Hollywood stud farm, (forgive us the muddled metaphors), the search is well and truly on to find the " next big thing" to appeal to that highly consumptive tri-partite grouping of "tweens" teens and young adults. Thus Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the initial Twilight, has been roped in for what it is hoped will be the latest occult-romance-adventure mix that will bring them rushing into the theatres and buying  the merchandise.

You know the basic story well enough. hardwicke and screenwriter David Johnson (Orphan) take a stretch-to-fit approach that encompasses modern soap opera and teen dram cliches and toss in a bit of religious and mythological mumbo-jumbo in an attempt to thicken the stew. The attempt fails, and largely because none of the actors - Gary Oldman aside - have the goods to pull off that mix of simmering passion and calculating cool.

We've made some heavy weather of Nick Cgae's long meltdown, but Oldman, despite his presence in the aforementioned Potter franchise and Chris Nolan's Batman projects, has had his share of clunkers too. Add this to that list. His Father Solomon, the hotshot priest/warrior called in to help tackle the wolf is straight out of "Melodrama & Overacting 101" slightly reminiscent of his turn as a drug dealer/pimp in "True Romance" but nowhere near as fun to watch. (or maybe we've just grown older). Indeed, Red Riding Hood is an almost spectacular carnage of wasted talent, with the likes of Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, and even  - gasp! -Julie Christie (as Grandma) squandered before our very eyes

As an onscreen presence, Amanda Seyfried is hard to pin down. While she's not the dry husk that Kristen Stewart is in the Twilight movies, she never fully engages as an actress. She comes off as one of those kids at the back of the group on a field trip, occasionally catching bits and pieces of the monologue and display but essentially more tuned in to some other world of her own making.

The other star - the wolf - is a major disappointment visually. he producers should have hired the efx crew that worked on Benicio de Toro's Wolfman remake. This wolf looks more like a reject from the Tex Avery files. The use of the voice-over narrative, a dead-ringer for Twilight, is a further detraction.

Will Red Riding Hood become the Twilight of this decade? Hardly likely, but just  as the drug companies have a pill for every condition, and one more for the side-effects, rest assured that there'll be plenty more of these types of adaptations to come.