I’ve been waiting for this movie to come out since earlier this month – ClicktheCity.com made the mistake of reporting that Into the Wood’s release date was going to be on the second week of January and I’ve been frothing at the mouth ever since.  I guess in retrospect I’m quite thankful that the release date was pushed back this late; it gave me ample time to catch up and watch the Original Broadway Cast (OBC) version and at the very least have some notes for comparison.

I saw Into the Woods earlier with my mom, because she’s a huge Meryl Streep fan and she especially loves Meryl in musicals.

So here’s the round-up of Rob Marhall’s (Chicago) Into the Woods.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

The movie is a film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 Broadway play of the same name, where he combines a handful of fairy tales and twists it into a dark satirical comedy with, in true Sondheim form, really fast paced songs.

In this weird fairy tale amalgamation, we have Cinderella (Anna Kendrick – Pitch Perfect),  Little Red Riding Hood (Lila Crawford), the fool-headed Jack (Daniel Huttlestone – Les Miserables), the Baker (James Corden – Begin Again) and his Wife (Emily Blunt – Edge of Tomorrow), and the token Witch (Meryl Streep – Death Becomes Her) go into the woods.  Each of the characters are desperately wishing for something that they feel would make their lives complete.  Cinderella only wants to attend the King’s Festival to not only get away from her evil Stepmother (Christine Baranski – Chicago) and Stepsisters Florinda (Tammy Blanchard – Moneyball) and Lucinda (Lucy Punch – Bad Teacher), but also get a chance to meet one of the Kingdom’s Prince Charmings (Chris Pine – Star Trek).  Jack only wants to keep his pet cow, Milky White, who his mother (Tracey Ullman – Little Lulu) wants to sell in the market so to keep them from starving.  Little Red only wants to keep to the straight path to go to her Granny’s house but is distracted by a Wolf (Johnny Depp – Transcendence) .  The Baker and his Wife, who desperately want to have a child, are devastated when they learn that their next door neighbor,  the Witch, has cast a curse that would keep their family line barren.  The Witch has agreed to lift the curse only under the condition that the couple bring back ingredients – a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold – for a potion she needs to revert to her young, beautiful self so that Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy – Brother’s Keeper), the daughter she has locked up in a tower won’t feel ashamed to be with her anymore.  If the ingredients can be collected in three midnights, all of their wishes would come true.

THE GOOD:

1. Johnny Depp as the creepy pedophillic wolf.  He was only in the movie for less than ten minutes but all of the moments he was in the frame were gold.

   

2. The ‘Agony’ sequence was just brilliant.   It was way over the top and arguably too much for the movie, but I felt the way it was shot perfectly captured the relationship between the two princes.
3. Emily Blunt, because she made what the Baker’s Wife did palatable.  It’s a difficult thing to make a betrayal acceptable but because Emily Blunt was so likeable, she did it.

   

4. Anna Kendrick as Cinderella.  I had my reservations when I first heard that Anna Kendrick was going to play this role because I have a hard time picturing her in a timid role.  But I was pleasantly surprised at how good she was!

THE BAD:

1. The lack of chemistry between the characters who were romantically linked.  It’s a shame because they’re all good in their own right, but they just didn’t mesh well together.  Chris Pine just looked awkward next to Anna Kendrick and it was a hard sell that the beautiful Emily Blunt would stay with a hard headed James Corden who was very much adamant in pushing her away.

   

2. That the film makers decided to “clean up” the story.  A LOT.  The story was never meant for kids and I was very sorry to see so much of the ugliness removed. One of the major selling points of the play was that the characters went so low and did despicable things that it made you question yourself if you would do the same if you were in the character’s shoes.  I get that it’s Disney and all, but yikes.

THE UGLY:

1. The Princes’ up do hair.  What was up with that?

   

2. That in the end, there was nothing new that was was offered by the movie.  I’ve always considered Chicago as one of the better musical adaptations, because the movie was able to capture the play’s snarky and sarcastic attitude in its clever scenes.  And even though I quite liked the scene where Little Red had a flashback of her encounter with the Wolf, there was just too little of that creativity.
3. A lot of the jokes just flew over the audience’s heads.  I understand that it must’ve been very difficult to translate a story that was made for the stage – where audiences expect to get a little bit everything – romance, tragedy, fluff, etc – onto the big screen BUT because Disney and the film makers ultimately decided to go for the feel-good route, some of the more sarcastic jokes that were oh so very funny in the play, outright fizzled on screen.

All in all, Into the Woods was an okay movie with a stellar ensemble who gave performances with varying levels of success.  It’s just a shame that they Disney-fied too much of a story that was only ever meant to be for adults.

THE VERDICT: 7/10.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.