Review of Into the Woods (2014) by Devax2 — 25 Dec 2014

This started out as a charming film interweaving several classic fairy tales together with an all-star cast.

Then it went on.

And on.

And ON.

This film should've ended about an hour earlier than it did. While the singing could getThis started out as a charming film interweaving several classic fairy tales together with an all-star cast.

Then it went on.

And on.

And ON.

This film should've ended about an hour earlier than it did. While the singing could get tiring at times, I still enjoyed it to a degree and thought it made for a charming movie when I (falsely) believed it ended.

But little did I know that we were still in for half an hour to an hour more of constant singing, constant -annoying- siniging.

I'm not even sure how the singing is compared to the amount of actual dialog in the film, but I'd argue it makes up nearly 90% of all speaking in the movie.

Yes, it's one of -those- films, where it seems like the producers were unsure of just how catchy the songs were and decided to throw as many darts as they can at the board, hoping one sticks. In the end , the only song I actually can remember is Johnny Depp's one creepy stint as the big bad wolf, and that's only because his performance and the level of creep in the song just makes it difficult -not- to forget.

Around the third act (I assume it's the third act, it's really hard to tell because of how long the film dragged on) it seems like the writers realized they had another hour of film they -had- to throw in, so they ended up writing some chaotic mess that confuses if not outright -destroys- every moral and little message they were trying to make in the other two acts! Characters have their personalities completely destroyed, random characters are killed off for seemingly no reason, and the film drags -on-, until at the end it comes to some random confused "moral" that seems to be the writers throwing their arms in the air and going "Yeeeeah, make your -own- family! And stuuuuuuuuuff!".

What's truly shocking, is I have -never- sat through a film that transitioned from something charming I -like- to something so frustrating that I would've left the theater if my family wasn't with me.

If I can offer any advice to people still deciding to see this film (other than don't), it's sit through the first two acts, then when you think it ends (and trust me, you'll believe you've reached the ending), just leave. There's -no point- in sitting through it any further. The film becomes some mess and it just isn't worth it.