I recently watched Disney/Pixar’s Up for the first time, and yes, it made me cry, and yes, I did like it.  But that’s not to say it didn’t have its flaws.  For one thing, there is a serious imbalance of m:f characters.  The two moderately important female characters are either a) tragically killed off in the first half hour of the film, or b) named Kevin and shockingly revealed to have babies, automatically making her most important role “mother.”  Furthermore, I was fairly certain that the idea of a movie about an old wrinkly grumpy woman and a chubby little girl would never have been so much as produced, let alone popular.

However, I forgot about a little personal favorite of mine: Hoodwinked.

Hoodwinked is a retelling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and retellings of fairy tales always score high marks with me (or at least have the opportunity to).  There is a goody-bandit in town stealing everyone’s goodies and goody recipes in order to open up a giant goody corporation and take over the world.  The protagonist, of course, is our dear Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway) and her Granny (Glenn Close) is also a lead.  So I was wrong about there never being a movie about a little girl and and old woman, although Red is an attractive young woman rather than a chubby little boy, and Granny is a wild extreme sports champion, not a crotchety old dude.

I love Hoodwinked, highly recommend it, and encourage anyone out there with daughters and nieces to share the film with a generation of girls that could use a little more legitimate “girl power.”  However, critics didn’t agree with me.  Hoodwinked received a rating of 48% (rotten) from Rotten Tomatoes, had “mixed or average reviews,” and grossed $110 mil in the box office.  On the other hand, Up received a rating of 98% (fresh) from Rotten Tomatoes, had “positive reviews,” and grossed $702.8 mil worldwide.  Hoodwinked isn’t a “girly” story, but the main character as female automatically divides its target market in half.

Have you seen these films?  How do you think they compared?  And why do films starring women and girls never stand a chance?