Movie:
Into the Woods
Release Date: December 25, 2014
Language: English
Director: Rob Marshall
Based on: “Into the Woods” (musical) by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
Stars: Anna Kendrick, Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp (and many more great actors)
On the 9th of February, after a few months of having doubts on to go or not to go (even though the movie came out on December 25th), a few friends had decided that we should definitely see Into The Woods. The expectations were low, considering a couple of others have told us about the plot twist at the near end of the movie.
“Into The Woods is a modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fasiry tales in a musical format that follows the classic tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel-all tied together by an original story involving a baker and his wife, theeir wish to begin a family and their interaction with the witch who has put a curse on them.” [IMDb]
The movie is about the baker and his wife, as said in the IMDb summary, and their wish to have a child. The witch, who lives nextdoor, has put a curse on the baker’s family which causes him to be unable to get his wife pregnant. In order to reverse the curse, the witch sends them on a journey to collect several items from the classic fairy tales; a cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, the slipper as pure as gold. They are given three nights to collect these items, before the blue moon comes.
Personally, I’m not a very big fan of musicals. I expected a lot of random breakout-songs and very ill lipsyncing. Part of my expectations came true. The songs were very random yet interesting and sometimes hilarious, even. The fact that they got all these great people to sing and even managed to lipsync very well, not just pronouncing the words but actually having their feelings put in their expressions pretty much satisfied me.
The story was very well developed and interesting twists took place. Although most twists were great, some could have been left out or maybe be included for an extended edition, since the film itself took two hours and five minutes. The main twist that annoyed me the most, was the part in which Jack climbs up a beanstalk and kills a giant. All okay, since this happens in the original tale. Yet, this giant had a wife. The giant’s wife came down the beanstalk that was created by Cinderella throwing a magic bean onto the ground earlier in the movie. This lady-giant decides that she wants to kill the one who killed her husband.
Considering this whole happening leads to several other very important features in the film (I won’t spoil too much), I do understand why this has to be in the movie. In my opinion though, this part could have easily been left out and everyone could have lived happily every after without having an extra 45 minutes of the extremely dramatically sung songs.
One of the songs, sung by Rapunzel’s Prince (Billy Magnussen) and Cinderella’s Prince (Chris Pine) however, did please me alot. As they sung about their princesses, repeating the word “agony” in various dramatic positions with their charming brotherly relationship trying to be better looking and more talented than the other, they managed to get the entire theater to laugh and cry with them.
Altogether, this is probably a great movie if you are willing to listen to songs with the same melody for about two hours and if you would like to see the most classical fairy tales come together in a way you could have never imagined. For me, it was just a bit too dramatic. Let’s just say that all the goodlooking people made it worth it.
In a nutshell:
Liked it: Kinda
Loved it: No
Re-watch: No
Cinema worthy: No
