A laughable adaptation of the fairy tale, with Amanda Seyfried as a young girl torn between two bland love interests (Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons) in a medieval village being terrorized by a werewolf. Boring and artificial, with only a campy performance by Gary Oldman as a werewolf-hunter to recommend it.

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Virginia Madsen

Rating: One and a half stars out of five

Once upon a time in a medieval village that looked like what would happen if you built a film set in a snow globe, there lived a hot little girl named Valerie (why Amanda Seyfried, what big lips you have). Valerie wore a red cape with a big hood, and so everyone called her Valerie.

The people in Valerie's village were all afraid because a big bad werewolf had been manufactured by the local special-effects company to come along and eat people every full moon.

The townsfolk set out livestock to mollify the wolf, but occasionally, it couldn't resist a human morsel. And so the village was called Daggerhorn.

However, Valerie had bigger fish to fry, because -- just like the hot little girl in Twilight, a story that would come along a few hundred years later -- she was torn between two men. She loved Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), who had dark hair and facial expressions that ranged from glaring to smouldering.

However, she was loved by Henry (Max Irons), who had blond hair and facial expressions that ranged from smouldering to glaring. This romantic triangle was of no interest, because Peter and Henry were the blandest love interests in all of Daggerhorn, but, unfortunately, the werewolf was never around when you needed it.

One day, a werewolf-hunter named Father Solomon came to town in an ironclad coach, with a troop of fierce men with silver arrows.

Father Solomon was played by Gary Oldman, who apparently had arrived from an entirely different movie, something far campier than Peter or Henry could have stood, and a lot more fun, from the sounds of it. Father Solomon not only said things like, "There's a big bad wolf and someone has to stop it," but he could glare and smoulder at the same time. Gary Oldman won an Emmy Award once. He also won a Razzie.

Father Solomon and his gang decided that someone in Daggerhorn must be the werewolf, and so they began a witch-hunt that was less like The Crucible and more like an Agatha Christie mystery if she had written one that took place in a medieval snow globe and involved a hammy detective gathering everyone together and saying that someone in this room was a wolf.

The suspects included just about everyone, including Peter and Henry, of course, but also the more famous actors who had come to Daggerhorn to play Valerie's parents (Virginia Madsen and Billy Burke) and her grandmother (why Julie Christie, what big over-qualifications you have).

This story was directed by Catherine Hardwicke -- who had made the first Twilight movie -- with an air of melodrama so artificial and lacking in tension, it was laughable. All the better to bore you with, my dear.

And they called it Red Riding Hood, and the people at a preview screening all had a good chuckle at some of the dopey attempts to scare them, and they all lived happily ever after, because they didn't have to watch it again.

For Jay Stone's weekly movie podcast, go to www.canada.com/moviereviews.

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