I never did see this one in theaters, but I saw it on television this week.  It was okay.  It could have been better, but could have been worse too.  Starring Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, and Julie Christie, the movie just never felt like a real werewolf movie.  They did work in all the classic Little Red Riding Hood story elements, so the title worked out.

Spoilers ahead.

The most glaringly wrong thing about this movie was the under use of Gary Oldman.  I don’t think he showed up in the movie until about one quarter in, and then died with about a quarter of the movie to go.  Gary Oldman should have played the werewolf/Valerie’s father.  That would have made more sense.  (Probably someone got it in their head that having Billy Burke, who played Bella’s father in the Twilight movies, play a werewolf was somehow appropriate.)

I must give them credit on some of the plot elements.  Revealing Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) as the werewolf’s daughter and that her sister was killed because she was only her half sister (not the werewolf’s daughter) was an interesting twist.  The love story angle, with her arranged marriage to Henry while she was in love with Peter worked well, I thought.

Ultimately Peter being bitten by the werewolf and becoming one made it look like it would have a depressing tragic ending, but his leaving at the end and returning for her only after he had learned to control what he had become gave it a happy, if somewhat hard to believe, ending.

Monster hunter Solomon (Gary Oldman) revealing that the first werewolf he killed was his own wife gave credit to his character’s vicious obsession with killing the monster at an cost.  Still, I’d have rather seen him play the werewolf.

All in all, it was only okay, and not great.  Glad I didn’t bother see it in theaters.

Thanks for reading!