Review of Into the Woods (2014) by Spangle — 23 Mar 2016

I loved Into the Woods. Hilarious, touching, and fantastically musical, the film is a wonderfully entertaining take on the fairy tales of old and their worlds, while adding in a nice twist with the trademark moral of the story.

First off, the music is fantastic. Both the musical sequences and score are beautiful and sung perfectly. The acting from Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, and Meryl Streep, is very good. Additionally, the direction from Rob Marshall is very good.

Without it, this film would have been DOA due to the mashup of various stories. The pacing is good, though it can be a touch frenetic in the beginning, but it was far from detrimental. The script is good and really does a good job balancing everything.

The cinematography and special effects are great and capture some seriously beautiful shots together. Into the Woods can also be truly hysterical as it gleefully makes fun of musicals and the fairy tales it incorporates.

However, the piece I loved the most was the ruminations on life (and the dangers hidden within), love, loss, grieving, and parenthood. This is where the film is a home run success and truly becomes a major success.

Into the Woods can be weird at times and it requires a willingness from the audience to go along with it, but on the whole, it is a funny and truly emotionally moving musical that has fantastic music to go along with it.