Thoughts on "Into the Woods"

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Disney's film adaptation of Into the Woods sucked. As a fan of the original Broadway musical and quality film-making in general, I think I have the right to say that. It was lackluster in every conceivable way possible: from the casting to the music to the dumbed-down plot to the humor to the mixed audience-pandering to the tone to the contrivance of the whole damn thing.

Casting & Performance

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Meryl Steep as the Witch: Meryl Streep is a fine(and perhaps my personal favorite) actress, but casting her in this was a huge misstep on the part of Marshall. She tried to make a character who was supposed to be fun and silly and flamboyant into a serious character using the same script. The result is... Unsettling to say the least. The witch's rap, one of her most memorable moments, is so downplayed and with such terrible comedic timing that it is just embarrassing to the fans and confusing to the new viewers. It seems more like slam poetry than a rap! It's so... Bad! Despite how much I love Meryl Streep as an actress and a person, her casting(or at least her portrayal of the Witch) was(for lack of a better term) poor. Furthermore, the decision to NOT kill off Rapunzel at the start of the second act means that she has no stake or purpose in the second act.

Anna Kendrick as Cinderella: The film seems to definitely have a much larger focus on Cinderella than the original Broadway show did. In the original, she had only a bit more time on stage than Rapunzel during the first act. Here, she plays second-fiddle to the four main characters(the Witch, the Baker, his Wife, and Jack). Meanwhile, her importance to the actual plot hardly changes and this added screen-time just detracts from other parts of the story(namely the second act, which lasted only a quarter of the film). I'd only ever seen Kendrick in Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World before and she played a fairly bland character in that, so I only recognized her while writing this review, so she gets no sympathy. She did, however, play her part well and was one of the few actresses I didn't mind in the film.

Johnny Depp as The Wolf: Oh, where to start with Depp? How about the obvious: Where did he put all of his accessories while he filmed all of the four minutes he was in this? He was among the top billed cast and he was in the film for literally four minutes, with a minute and a half of that being under a veil, glasses, and neck-doily. Depp's Wolf played onto the more rape-y characteristic of the original character. Those familiar with the show will dismiss him as a dumbed-down version of Westenberg's portrayal while those unfamiliar will call it the breaking point of the film. Depp was many people's main draw to the film(for some inexplicable reason) and the filmmakers tricked them by putting him among the stars.

Emily Blunt as The Baker's Wife: Blunt had a lot to live up to, with Gleason's immaculate portrayal of the character in 1987. The Baker's Wife, while not as memorable a character in this version, she remained one of the few likable actresses and characters in the 2014 film. She is not particularly notable: there is nothing particularly new about Blunt's portrayal other than that she did a fairly mediocre job while still maintaining the label of "good."

Chris Pine & Billy Magnussen as Cinderella's & Rapunzel's Princes: To begin, I feel that it is important to note that I LOVE Chris Pine(despite the mediocrity of Star Trek: Into Reference), and that he, paired with Magnussen was the best part of this film. Pine and Magnussen delivered a shockingly beautiful, funny, and entertaining rendition of Agony, which was the highlight of the film based on everyone I've spoken to about it. Agony made me realize "Hey. I'm still in a theatre watching a movie and not just torturing myself listening to a poorly reimagined version of the soundtrack with some expensive music video."

James Corden as the Baker: While no Chip Zein by any means, Corden, along with his female counterpart, brings some form of heart and fun into the film. Many nerds might know him from Doctor Who as Craig, but he can actually deliver a surprisingly fun performance. When I originally heard of Corden as the casting choice for the Baker, I thought "What? No." But I feel now that he was a great choice, and likely the only choice! Most actors who fit the look and build of Zein(which I based my original perception of the character of the Baker out of) wouldn't be able to potray the character with as much fun and power.

Lilla Crawford as Little Rid Riding Hood: The reason I immediately knew this film was schlock. Something was off with her performance in the Prologue, and I quickly realized it was because SHE COULDN'T PORTRAY ANY EMOTION WHATSOEVER! She was like a female Jake Lloyd. The original Broadway casting of Red was amazing: she gave the role character beyond "bratty fat kid who gets raped by a wolf." Crawford, however, makes you want to tear your eyeballs out at her indifference in her surroundings. She only showed any emotion ONCE throughout the whole film: when the Baker and his Wife found her in the woods at the beginning of the second act and she hangs her head in perceived sorrow, possibly lamenting her family's death: we never really see. She is the most monotonous actress in history. And it's not simply because she is a child actor: some child actors can be good(see Dan Lloyd as Danny Torrance in The Shining), she is simply BAD.

MacKenzie Mauzy as Rapunzel: Rapunzel's role was cut severely short in the film: she didn't even die at the beginning of the second act to provide the witch with a reason for wanting vengeance against the giant. While Mauzy's performance wasn't particularly terrible, we didn't see enough of her to get a proper view.

Daniel Huttlestone as Jack: Huttlestone was enfuriating. He wasn't old enough to portray an idiot or to get rid of his Manc accent. For the first time, Jack slurs every word he says with a terrible, ruinous voice and bad acting. I hate this kid almost as much as I do Crawford. His usefulness in the plot gives him a leg up, though.

Simon Russell Beale as The Mysterious Man: Beale was in the movie for two scenes. And he didn't sing No More. That song(my personal favorite) was cut. And he looks like Benny Andersson with white hair.

Music

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The Removal of No More: No More was a huge turning point for the Baker: he took all of his anger and emotions, bottled it up, and put them to use for the greater good: it lets him change the path of his family forever, and by just adding a bit of the Baker's inner monologue through dialogue with a ghost doesn't hold up in A MUSICAL WHERE THERE IS MUSIC EVERYWHERE!

The Wolf's Musical Changes in Hello, Little Girl: Depp's rendition of Hello, Little Girl acts as a microcosm of the whole show: looming build-ups of nostalgia to disappointment through climactic disappointments. The meaning of the song does not change at all, but Depp's musical timing is all off and it simply begs the question why they chose to change it. The voice he puts on during the whole spiel is off-putting in a way as to make him unlikable to the audience as opposed to the sort-of court jester-esque character of his 1988 counterpart.

Plot and Structure

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The Second Act is a mess. It is also where Marshall took most of his liberties. Instead of making the film a half hour longer, he chose to remove the exposition of the second act, beginning directly about halfway through the second act from the end of the first. Instead of showing the destruction of the Baker's house and his problems with parenting. Throughout the entire second act, I found myself annoyed by the lack of things being established: the Witch's "boom-squish" line was only used during her final song, which is what I assumed caused the collective "huh?" from my fellow movie-goers. Then the Mysterious Man's appearance where No More should have been also confused the audience because they hadn't established that the Mysterious Man had influenced the Baker's decisions throughout like they had in the stageplay.

Audience

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I have absolutely no idea who Into the Woods is aimed at. The original was obviously aimed towards adults who had experience in the theatrical field and could understand that the show was a sort-of parody of other musicals. But the film adaptation is not clever in any way, shape, or form. It has less than half of the adult humor of the first, but that which is kept is of the most disgusting variety. Meanwhile, lots of slapstick and immature humor is added. There seems to be no definite audience to whom this film is pandered, which is a bothersome issue in the film industry and leads us to believe that the creators had no idea what they were doing, which, based upon the rest of the film, is rather likely.

Conclusion

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In short: the 2014 film version of Into the Woods is a poor recreation of a beloved musical in the style of many recent(and more successful, I might add) works of a similar fantasy nature. So yes: it is bad-don't waste your money.