Hoodwinked Too! Hood versus Evil

image for Hoodwinked Too! Hood versus Evil

Short takes

Not recommended under 7, PG to 9 (Violence; Scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Hoodwinked Too! Hood versus Evil
  • a review of Hoodwinked Too! Hood versus Evil completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 31 May 2011.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 7 Not recommended due to violence and scary scenes
Children aged 7-9 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and scary scenes

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Hoodwinked Too! Hood versus Evil
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: None
Length: 86 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Hoodwinked Too! opens with the Happy Ever After (HEA) agents the Big Bad Wolf (voice of Patrick Warburton), Granny Puckett (Glen Close) and Twitchy (Cory Edwards) attempting to rescue two children, Hansel (Bill Hader) and Gretel (Amy Poehler), who are being held prisoner by a wicked witch (Joan Cusack). Unfortunately the rescue doesn’t go as planned and the witch escapes with not only Hansel and Gretel, but Granny as well.

Meanwhile, Red Riding Hood (Hayden Panettiere) is off on special assignment training with the Sisterhood of the Kung Fu Bakers, and is about to undertake her final trial when a secret recipe is stolen.  

Red and the Wolf are now partnered to find Hansel and Gretel, rescue Granny and catch the recipe thief. Of course, all does not go smoothly at first, and Hansel and Gretel may not be the innocent victims they at first seem.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Fairy tales; kidnapping

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

Hoodwinked Too! contains animated violence and accidental harm which are largely portrayed in a comical manner with real life consequences not depicted and characters rarely injured. Children may imitate some of the violence depicted. Examples include:

  • Hansel and Gretel are tied up and in a large stock pot. Granny tells the Big Bad Wolf that the children are going to become “baked goods” and we hear a comment about children tasting like chicken.
  • When Granny, the Big Bad Wolf and Twitchy attempt to rescue Hansel and Gretel from a gingerbread house, the wicked witch on a rocket powered broom crashes through the window with Hansel and Gretel tied up in cages next to her. Granny, the Wolf and Twitchy chase the witch on a speeding motor bike. Granny leaps from the motorbike and grabs the broom but the witch handcuffs her to the broom. The wolf also attempts to jump from the motorbike and grab the broomstick, but misses, lands on a windmill and is propelled through the air.
  • While training with the Sisterhood, Red fights a large four-armed ogre which tries to hit her with a giant hammer. Red kicks the ogre in the face several times and then knocks him to the ground. 
  • A woman is hit in the face with a rolling pin. She falls unconscious on the ground and another woman steps over her.
  • Granny is tied to a chair and the wicked witch threatens that she will cook the two children if Granny refuses to make the secret recipe.
  • A giant black spider drops down and picks up a little girl eating from a bowl and then disappears up into the air.
  • In a parody of a scene from “Silence of the Lambs”, Red, Wolf and Twitchy stand in front of a prison cell with a rabbit strapped to an upright table. Red grabs the rabbit’s ear through a hole in the glass partition and pulls it through, causing the rabbit’s face to squash up against the glass.          
  • We hear the order “send in the pigs” and a number of thuggish looking pigs storm the HEA headquarters. They attack a frog which fights back, knocking down several of the pigs.
  • During a fight between three thuggish pigs, the Wolf and Twitchy, the pigs kick the wolf in the groin and pull his arm (we hear the sound of bones cracking). Twitchy attacks the pigs with a sledge hammer, hitting them in the head, until there is a pile of unconscious pigs on the ground.
  • A giant spider crawls towards Granny and Red, who are tied to chairs. The spider is about to attack when the woodsman and his band blow open the door and attack the spider, hitting and kicking it until they force it out of the room.      
  • While giant sized, Hansel and Gretel walk through a city smashing building and overturning cars as they go. They throw the broken buildings onto the people below. Hansel picks up a large piece of rubble and throws it at Red who dodges it but falls off the building. Hansel and Gretel stand over Red and are about to drop a car on top of her when she is rescued.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The witch wears a scary looking mask with red glowing eyes and a long beak-like nose and she has long sharp finger nails.
  • A large green ogre with four arms.
  • A giant black spider with red eyes and lots of teeth that acts in a threatening and menacing manner although later in the film it turns out to be friendly.
  • The mafia boss type giant has an intimidating and threatening manner.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Younger children in this age group may also be scared by some of the above-mentioned scenes

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Most children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

None of concern

Sexual references

There are some sexual references and crude humour in this movie, including:

  • When the wolf slams into a wall we hear him say “OK, I can taste my own butt”.
  • We hear a sarcastic reference made to a desexing centre.
  • After a giant falls and sits on top of a goat, we hear the muffled voice of the goat saying that he was inside a "dark tunnel" and that it "smells like burritos".

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Twitchy come out of his caravan with two female squirrels. One gives Twitchy a quick kiss on the cheek while the second gives him a longer passionate kiss on the lips.
  • On another occasion, Twitchy comes out of his caravan with two female squirrels, saying “OK girls let’s call it a night”. 
  • An ogre wears sumo wrestler-style pants, exposing his buttocks

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Drinking in a nightclub
  • A green gas is used to render Red and Twitchy unconscious and the Wolf says that his tongue felt all puffy and that he could see rainbows.
  • Granny makes a joke about the 60’s being a blur.
  • We hear the term, “Chill a pill and take one”.

Coarse language

There is some mild coarse language and name calling that children may imitate. Alternate words are substituted for stronger coarse language.  Examples include:

  • “shut up”, “butt”, “who the mother goose?”, “jerk faced”,  “dirt bags”, “big pile of number two”, “ filthy swine”, “stink rot”

In a nutshell

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil is an animated comedy based on fairytale characters, targeted at primary school aged children and older. It contains scenes that may scare children under seven and violence and language that may be imitated by younger children. It is not as clever and enjoyable for adults as the first Hoodwinked film.

The main messages from this movie are:

  • not to let your pride get in the way of helping others.
  • to be open to help and suggestions.
  • that working together as a team will achieve much more than working as individuals.

 Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • cooperation: It was only by working together as a team that Red and her friends were able to overpower the evil villains of the film.
  • self reflection: both the Wolf and Red were able to reflect on their shortcomings and

Parents may wish to discuss with younger children the make-believe nature of the animated violence depicted in the film and discuss the real life consequences that would result from this type of violence.

  • make changes.