An updated re-telling of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood." The satire begins where the fable last left off, as there's always more to every tale than meets the eye! Furry and feathered cops from the animal world, Chief Grizzly and Detective Bill Stork, investigate a domestic disturbance at Granny's cottage, involving a girl, a wolf and an axe. The charges are many: breaking. - skip ad - Genres: Comedy, Kids/Family and Animation Running Time: 1 hr. 20 min. Release Date: January 13th, 2005 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG for some mild action and thematic elements. Cast And Credits Starring: Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, James Belushi, Anthony Anderson, Patrick Warburton Directed by: Tony Leech, Todd Edwards, Cory Edwards Produced by: Maurice Kanbar, Sue Bea Montgomery, Preston Stutzman

A satirical take on "Little Red Riding Hood," the computer-animated "Hoodwinked" occupies some considerably shaky turf situated uncomfortably between "Shrek" and dreck.

Despite attracting a name voice cast including Glenn Close, Jim Belushi and Anne Hathaway, this first effort from Kanbar Animation, a venture formed by Skyy Vodka inventor Maurice Kanbar and animation veteran Sue Bea Montgomery, gets hopelessly lost in the woods.

Hampered by a comedic tone that's too one-note to sustain a feature-length format and less than fluid digital animation, this Weinstein Co. release, which opens today in Los Angeles and goes wide Jan. 13, will unlikely have a fairy-tale ending at the boxoffice.

Writers Cory Edwards (who also directs), Todd Edwards and Tony Leech take a Rashomon approach to the Girl N the Hood story, turning Grandma's home invasion into a crime scene investigation.

No babe in the woods, Red (voiced by Hathaway), is now a martial arts expert, Granny (Close) prefers participating in extreme sports to knitting, the Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is a glib investigative journalist and the Woodsman (Belushi) is a dim-witted struggling actor.

Assigned to the case is the debonair, amphibious detective Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), accompanied by police chief Grizzly (Xzibit) and police officer Bill Stork (Anthony Anderson), but while their attempts to learn the identity of the perp known as the Goody Bandit yield intermittent bits of comic inspiration, it all starts growing tired long before the happily ever after part.

It's the kind of thing that would have been right at home as a Fractured Fairy Tale segment in the old "Rocky & Bullwinkle" cartoons (there's also the 1955 seven-minute Looney Tunes short, "Red Riding Hoodwinked") but at 81 minutes, with pacing that's all over the place, the production simply doesn't add up to a basket of laughs.

Not helping matters is the cost-effective but jerky CGI and bland '70s-style songs by Edwards which don't exactly blend neatly with John Mark Painter's '80s electronic Harold Faltermeyer tribute score.