Review of Into the Woods (2014) by Armando P — 27 Jun 2015

Certain movies in their releasing years are sometimes posed as their respective year's version of another movie from the previous year(s). Such cases like "Gone Girl" seems to posed as 2014's "Prisoners" from 2013; "Nightcrawler" was called to posed as 2014's "Crash" from 2005; "The Monuments Men" was originally called to posed as 2013's "Argo" from 2012 before the changed date; and so on. In 2014, we were given a holiday released musical that'd showed some signs of being 2014's "Les Misérables;" and it'd taken studios competing for the rights of the Broadway musical. The superior studio of the film industry, Disney, gotten the rights of "Into the Woods," and toned it a bit down from some moments that were out of their friendly range and turned it family-friendly with great faithfulness on the production and performances.

"Into the Woods" is a well-connected, fitting crossover between different fairy tales of The Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and Rapunzel. All four tales were surprisingly faithful to their versions with twists that'd turned up from the crossover connection line that consisted a childless couple with a cursed baker by their next-door neighbor who's a witch. The title is the center of all the connected stories that was frequently being defined by its placement.

The Witch (Meryl Streep) cursed The Baker's (James Corden) family line when she caught his father stealing her magic beans and having her turned ugly in the process of raggedy old-looking. The curse kept The Baker's Wife (Emily Blunt) from being pregnant. As an opportunity had opened up, the Witch gave a list of ingredients for a cure of ridding the curse. The couple must find the following critical items: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold.

"Go into the woods!" - Meryl Streep.

Soon their journey cross paths and connects the aforementioned fairy tales and turned on some twists to those tales that would give the characters their happily ever after before realizing the reality of that line when it hits them later to a bigger twist in during the climax that'd threatened to bring some darkness to the story.

While the film starred Streep and Blunt, the rest of the ensemble cast starred Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine and Christine Baranski (from "Mamma Mia!") as Cinderella, Prince Charming and Cinderella's Stepmother; Daniel Huttlestone (surprisingly from "Les Misérables") and Tracy Ullman as Jack and Jack's Mother; and Johnny Depp as The Wolf, with Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood. The other casting that may be unfamiliar to us when shining under the spotlight introducing themselves like Crawford did are MacKenzie Mauzy and Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel and Rapunzel's Prince.

What makes this adaptation in the similar position as "Les Misérables" was the performances from an ensemble cast and the tone and the pacing of the musical with energy, power and emotions. Streep's number "Stay With Me" was sung with emotions at a dramatic level Anne Hathaway did for "I Dreamed a Dream," but with more power to her emotions and energy to bring out her tears in one single, successful take. Also, Streep's contender of Best Supporting Actress justifies that point as Hathaway won that award almost two years ago. But Streep isn't the only one doing a replication of Hathaway's performance, Blunt did one at the same position in one song that I'm not going to spoil (if you've seen both shows and the play, you'll know what I mean).

Next we have is Huttlestone. His filmography so far consists the two films; and his performances were energized the same way with probably the same wonders his characters had in both films.

For the other actors, the princesses of the story - Crawford, Kendrick and Mauzy - showed some similar characteristics as Amanda Seyfried's character while the princes - Pine and Magnussen - showed similar romantic, desired feelings to their respective girl as Eddie Raymayne's character. Depp, on the other hand, was doing his own with his usual quirkiness with signs of lust and showing nice musical talents - which was the point of these kind of musicals to bring out some hidden talents from well-known stars. But even though he's always a pleasant enjoyment, the way his character turned out was somewhat the least of his really good acting.

While the performances were really good, the musical numbers were finely-tuned by the amount of energy they'd used (and showed) to power them with high spirits and enough to have some tapping with some catchiness while some being named favorable. The tone from the musical perfectly matches Disney's way of rhythm to their musical tones and energy, while with the help of Stephen Sondheim, a composer and lyricist who'd worked with the Broadway musical. His involvement to the adaptation of the on-stage musical is a good production value.

The honorable mentionable numbers are the opening prologue of "Into the Woods" (the song), "I Know Things Now," "Giants in the Sky," "Stay With Me," "On the Steps of the Palace," "Your Fault," and the Finale. The other mentionable numbers, "Hello, Little Girl" and "Agony," may not be favorable due to the meaning in one and humorous content that was probably for a group of specific viewers in the other, but they're nicely-tuned as well.

Speaking of power, the film's power didn't have enough to match the one in "Les Misérables." It just seems that there's an unbreakable barrier that'd kept the level from going up and limited the cast and crew from breaking that despite best efforts. One of the little flaws was questioning on the logics of some pacing and direction. But it was soon ignored. However, if the story was changed a bit and it was well-approved, why not just finish a few loose ends that could've done a nice expansion of the story without being a problem and possibly criticized? That's the one flaw that can't be ignored, but it can although be okay to a satisfaction.

Disney's "Into the Woods" has a special placement in their library for presenting a nice, sort-of enchanting entertainment that matches their ways of bringing the best there is. The performances from a great cast done their work energetically while walking through a nice production design that probably matches the original design from the stage by the tone and atmosphere. The director Rob Marshall, who done "Chicago" and "Nine" and tried out the swashbuckling fantasy genre in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger's Tide," done a good job following and directing the faithfulness of the musical.

If you like a good musical that's Disney and family-friendly, packed with great stars and musical numbers while showing a better satisfaction than the on-stage version, go Into the Woods! (A-).

"I wish..." - Anna Kendrick.