A delightful and fun musical for the first two thirds, Into the Woods completely falls apart in a third act that is overly dark, overly long and overly depressing.
When a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) become frustrated with not being able to have a child, the witch who lives next door (Meryl Streep) shows up and tells them of the curse she put on the Baker’s father that will leave him unable to produce children and offers the couple a way out. If they gather items that the witch requires by midnight two days from then she will take the curse away. This leads the couple on a quest into the woods that sees them crossing paths with Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) who they trade magic beans to in exchange for his cow, Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) whose slipper they need, Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) from whom they need some of her hair, Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) whose cloak they need, and all the accompanying players in each of those fairy tales like the Big Bad Wolf (Johnny Depp), Prince Charming (Chris Pine), the Stepmother (Christine Baranski), the wicked step sisters (Lucy Punch and Tammy Blanchard) and Jack’s Mother (tracy Ulman. Things become understandably complicated and the characters find themselves in the mix together trying to get everything sorted out.
I am not a huge musical fan in a general sense but there have been plenty that I have liked over the years. Into the Woods has always intrigued me, though, because I really enjoy fairy tales particularly when they are mashed up or played for their adult themes. I was a bit worried when Disney was the studio to adapt the Broadway play to film because the implication was definitely that the material would be sanitized from reasonably mature themes to more family friendly fare. This most certainly has happened but there is still a fair amount of more adult content here and by and large the overall film doesn’t suffer for it.
On the whole, Into the Woods is fun and offers some great songs and terrific performances with enough of a sense of humor about itself not to feel overly silly. Unfortunately, there are elements here that do not work so well and the pacing, particularly into the third act, is way off and makes it feel overly long.
One of the issues in bringing a stage production to film is that if it is not done just right it can feel stagebound and unfortunately Into the Woods falls prey to this on several occasions. It is kind of weird too as it often has a sweeping scope and sense of wide open scale but other moments things feel like you have wandered into a community theater production making the best of the materials on hand. And these elements would look good for that community theater but for a multi-million dollar Rob Marshall film it looks off putting and amateurish. Likewise, the effects go from looking very good to tantamount to having a big arm attached to a pole sweeping in from off stage. I am not sure if these elements were added as nods to the stage production or just poor effects but you really can’t have things both ways in a film. Either make the reality of the thing stage like or make it feel like an organic part of the world but don’t try to straddle the line because it takes the viewer out of the experience.
The pacing is another problem which doesn’t feel like it will be one until the moment when it is. I was enjoying the movie up to what felt like a natural conclusion and then had to sit through another act in which everything is ruined and people act out of character presumably so the film can push its moral agenda and pass righteous judgment. Had this last act fit with the rest of the film tonally and with as much energy as the rest of it then I probably would have been okay with it but as it is we are given a jarring extra piece that goes in directions I really wasn’t interested in seeing.
This movie is something of an enigma for me as I found myself singing some of the songs to myself long after watching it and I completely enjoyed the majority of it but it ends so badly that there is a taint on the whole thing. Still, the songs are excellent and the performance of them is equally strong. I particularly enjoyed Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen’s performance of ‘Agony’ and it had just the right amount of humor and sincerity.
As mentioned the performances are excellent throughout the movie which is not surprising given the excellent cast. James Corden and Emily Blunt have terrific chemistry and are terrific anchors through most of the film. Anna Kendrick is dreamy as always and her voice never fails to impress. That Meryl Streep is excellent is no real surprise and her singing is equal to her acting, although I am very glad we were spared having to hear her rap. Chris Pine was very impressive and I was surprised to learn that he sings his parts himself. I thought for sure it was a professional singer dubbed in but it is him. It is a little weird that his vocal performance was more like William Shatner than his performance as Kirk in Star Trek but there it is. And that sounds like an insult but somehow it is not.
Conclusion [7.5 out of 10]
Into the Woods is a perplexing movie in terms of how good it is before it falls apart. With the third act it has it is really difficult to recommend but to not recommend it discounts a lot of good as well. Those elements are strong enough to warrant a viewing but I would caution against paying full price for it. A matinee show sounds like a much better proposition to me and it is worth at least that. If you are really into musicals in general or this one in particular it is definitely worth checking out at the price mentioned above. If you aren’t into musicals then you probably aren’t even reading this review. Watch with caution.
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I avoided reading any reviews before seeing this film, so I’d have no expectations or prejudices. And in the opening moments, I thought I’d been rewarded. This was clearly nothing typical from Hollywood. The characters in period dress, singing their dialog, and the surprise of seeing Tracey Uhlman! I was delighted to see her attached to this project. It bode well! The camera focused on the actors, and not the CGI. Since I knew nothing of the story, I wondered if it would be another LES MISERABLES. But as it unfolded, the “sing-song” lyrics that I hoped would evolve into grand musical numbers got a bit tiresome, and a slow leak began to hiss from my enthusiasm. It needed more…something. OK, so we’ve been introduced to childhood fairy tale themes, and maybe they’re going to weave them together somehow. Well they attempted to, but not in an imaginative way. Merle Streep as the witch. I thought there might have been a dash of Margaret Hamilton in her initial appearance, but no…Streep was taking it elsewhere. The first glimmer of genuine music came with Johnny Depp as The Big Bad Wolf. Cheesy makeup, but I can overlook that, the scene still works. I thought Chris Pine as the Prince was the stand-out performance. My guess is that this characterization is what the screenwriters had in mind for the entire project…funny, hammy, over the top, but enjoyable. And consistent. But the other characters, with their occasional surprisingly bad dialog, never attained it. Streep’s performance became irritating. The other characters bounced between light comedy and out-of-place drama. I gave up any hope of this being an actual musical, and over half-way through, the sing-songy dialog ceased all together, for no apparent reason. It was like the assistant director took over while the big guy went to lunch. Eventually, we the audience stumbled out of a forest of confusion, and see what looks like the end of the story. I resisted looking at my watch the whole time, and thought, well that wasn’t bad, but…wrong. The story plunged back into an irritating forest of heavy-handed seriousness, with thorns of what again attempted to be musical dialog. I had had enough. This could have been spin on the PRINCESS BRIDE, but it got LOST (somewhere) IN TRANSLATION. On the plus side, I was impressed that this thing got the green light from an industry that loves formulaic stories that at least promise to get production costs back. I hope they will with this one. Thirty minutes too long, and btw…Stephen Sondheim? Really?
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