This quirky take on “Little Red Riding Hood” starts after the classic story’s events, with characters like Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway), the Wolf (Patrick Warburton), Granny Puckett (Glenn Close), and an eccentric Woodsman (Jim Belushi) providing their accounts to the police in a “Rashomon”-style narrative. Each character offers a unique perspective on how they ended up at the same scene, as they are all suspects in a mysterious case of dessert recipe thefts in the forest.

A common critique of “Hoodwinked!” is its rough animation style, which falls short of typical theatrical releases. However, this aesthetic choice was born out of necessity rather than design.

Remarkably, “Hoodwinked!” stands as one of the first independently funded CG-animated movies. The film’s journey began when director Cory Edwards and his brother Todd caught the eye of Maurice Kanbar, the founder of Skyy vodka, who was interested in producing an animated feature with their company, Blue Yonder Films. Their most promising idea was a detective twist on “Little Red Riding Hood.” Working with a tight budget of just $8 million, the team set up their production studio in a rented house in the Philippines.

The film secured distribution after Bob Weinstein and his now infamous brother Harvey discovered it at the Cannes Film Festival. Their acquisition led to a demand for recasting the main roles with celebrity voices, including Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, and Jim Belushi. Fortunately, talented voice actors like Tom Kenny, David Ogden Stiers, and Tara Strong were able to retain their supporting roles.

Along with the animation crew at Digital Eye Candy, who had never worked on a feature-length animated film before, additional lighting and composition work was outsourced to Prana Studios in India. The lack of resources meant “Hoodwinked!” wouldn’t receive nearly as much attention to detail as Pixar’s biggest releases, so the wise decision was made for character movements to emulate Rankin Bass’ stop-motion style.

“Hoodwinked!” received distribution after Bob Weinstein and his convicted sex offender brother Harvey learned of its existence at the Cannes Film Festival. With their acquisition, however, came a mandate to recast the main characters with celebrity voices like Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, and Jim Belushi, among others. Thankfully, voice actors like Tom Kenny, David Ogden Stiers, and Tara Strong retained their supporting roles.

After learning why the animation on “Hoodwinked!” looks partially unrendered, you can appreciate everything else it succeeds at. The screenplay is a very funny, smart satire of investigative stories. Riffing on fairy tale archetypes made it difficult for the film to not draw comparisons to the “Shrek” franchise. However, “Hoodwinked!” is much less cynical with more sly pop culture references. Cinephiles will clock the amphibious Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) as a cheeky ode to William Powell’s Det. Nick Charles from the “Thin Man” comedies.

Much of the humor in “Hoodwinked!” channels the manic, yet controlled energy of “Looney Tunes.” Two of the funniest side characters are Twitchy (Cory Edwards), Wolf’s rapid-speaking squirrel assistant, and Japeth (Benjy Gaither), a horn-collecting goat who may or may not be cursed to sing everything he says. Even the songs don’t overstay their welcome, the funniest of which being a jingle about the Woodsman serving Schnitzel on a stick like an ice cream salesman. The best joke of all may be the identity of the Goody Bandit, with the disgraced voice actor inhabiting the insecure role they were born to play. 

Such praise doesn’t apply to its terrible 2011 sequel “Hoodwinked Too! Good Vs. Evil,” which is significantly less funny and somehow looks even worse despite a massive increase in budget. Save your time and just watch the original, now available for free on Tubi.