INTO THE WOODS

Walt Disney Pictures

Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes.

Grade:  C+

Director:  Rob Marshall

Screenwriter:  James Lapine, music by Stephen Sondheim

Cast:  Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick, James Corden, Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt, Christine Baranski

Screened at:  Lighthouse, NYC, 11/27/14

Opens:  December 25, 2014

The tagline for the movie is “Be careful what you wish for…” the implication being that you may get your wish but that you are worse off than ever.  In fact, the four people who make wishes right at the opening of the fairy tale all wish for the things that mean the most to them, and all get what they wish for.

“Into the Woods,” which is to a large extent a copy of the Broadway show that opened in New York in 1987 and ran until 1989, has little entertainment value for adults and is too scary for kids.  In the first account, there is little of the wit that Disney musicals wisely insert in their offerings to capture the attention of adults in the audience.  In fact the only bon mot in the entire movie is uttered by the prince who, after being caught cheating by his new wife offers, “I was brought up to be charming, not sincere.”  As for the young ones watching the picture, one hopes that they are sophisticated enough to avoid bad dreams. Cinderella’s two wicked sisters are deformed by their mother who hopes that the golden slipper that Cinderella left in the tar would fit them.  She cuts off a toe on one of her daughters, the shoe fits, but the prince is informed of the blood that seeps from the wound.  Mom cuts off the heel of her other daughter, but that plan falls through as well.  Furthermore, two women are killed during the course of the story.

James Lapine who wrote the adaptation of the musical and Stephen Sondheim who gives us his signature melodies, taking us to the fairy tales that have been popular for centuries, particularly as they are written down by the Grimm brothers.  Red Riding Hood, Jack (of the beanstalk), the giant, the baker and his wife, the wolf, Rapunzel, the prince, and particularly the ugly old witch are front and center, with special effects on order particularly when the witch is present but also after the witch turns into the normal human being and is sucked up into the earth.  The characters combine reasonably well, all bonded by their separate wishes.

As played by Lilla Crawford as Red Riding Hood, the plump, bratty, piggish girl takes a boatload of bread without paying from the baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt), eating it all before even arriving at grandma’s.  She meets the wolf (Johnny Depp), whose greetings to the annoying girl sounds more than vaguely seductive.  Meanwhile, Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), regularly laughed at, dressed in rags, and made to do dirty housework by her mother (Christine Baranski) and her two sisters, would love to go to the three-day festival at the palace where the king is looking or a bride for his son (Chris Pine).  Jack (Daniel Huttlestone),who  is not playing with all his marbles perhaps because he is regularly slapped on the head by his mother (Tracey Ullman), needs to sell the family cow to raise much-needed money.  All, including Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), are governed by a curse placed by the witch (Meryl Streep), the witch being the catalyst for all the action.

Central to the witch’s curse is the desire of the baker and his wife for a child, which they are unable to produce, the curse to be reversed only if the witch can get the four items that she demands from the couple within three nights, or before the full appearance of a blue moon which arrives only once in a century.

After a while, the proceedings become tiresome in this overlong musical which should have ended when the prince finds his princess but instead drags on with what looks like a long coda, introducing a giant whose arrival results in the death of the baker’s wife.   The music, composed by Stephen Sondheim in an original, contemporary, slightly dissonant manner, becomes grating because of its lack of variety (the same problem that plagued last year’s “Les Misérables), and the characters become annoying long before that.  As for the miscast Anna Kendrick, do you believe that the handsome prince would go for someone like her to such an extent that he would dance only with her for all three nights?  It’s no wonder that he goes on the prowl soon after the wedding.

Rated PG.  125 minutes.  © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Story – B-

Acting – C+

Technical – C+

Overall – C+