INTO THE WOODS

GRADE: B+
Starring Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine
Screenplay by James Lapine
Based on the musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim
Directed by Rob Marshall
Rated PG-13 (watered-down violence and implied sexuality)
Reviewed by Paul Gibbs

If there's anything I find harder to review than an adaptation of a book, it's an adaptation of stage musical. Musical theatre fans are as hard-core obsessive as any comic books nerds, and as much as they love their musicals, they hate any production which does something they don't like. Usually this is true of a movie version, so even if I loved the film I find it difficult to review because I know there's a good chance the most devoted fans will despise it for reasons I probably can't even see coming. On the other hand, while hardly a musical theatre buff, having spent much of my life in community theatre I have a filmiarity with and understanding of the medium, which means I find it hard to understand where other film geeks and critics are coming from much of the time as well. Many of them don't "get" musicals. Some even ask  "Why are they singing?" So, as someone with a foot in both worlds, i feel i have a unique perspective (not to say it's better than any other, just that's unique).  As it turns out, Into the Woods is one of the few stage musicals I wouldn't hesitate to call brilliant. It's hilarious, imaginative, touching and surprisingly profound.  So I went into this one with a lot of apprehension. Did they get it right? Well, yes and no.

The story begins with a disparate group of fairy-tale characters, each singing about their situation: a Baker and whis Wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt) want a child;Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wants to go to the Prince's festival; Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) must sell his beloved cow, and Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) is headed to see her grandmother in the woods. But when an a Witch (Meryl Streep) shows up at the Baker's home, she sets the plot in motion by telling the Baker and his Wife that a curse has been placed on their family, and in order to have children they must bring back a series of items she needs.

For the most part, the first act goes rather smoothly. Marshall has mounted a good production of the material, and most of his cast serves him well. Streep has a little trouble getting the rapid fire rhythm of her first song, but from there on plays the character rather well (it's pointless to compare her to the original Broadway Witch, Bernadette Peters. Musical or not, that was stage show and this is a movie, and the requisite acting styles are different). Chris Pine is a hilarious standout as Cinderella's Prince, and Corden and Blunt are wonderful as the Baker and his Wife. The only performances that really bothered me was the only I knew wood, Johnny Depp as the Wolf. His odd zoot suit design doesn't fit the rest of the film at all, his singing isn't very good, and he all around sticks out like a sore thumb. It's a rare case where audiences may wish the character was CGI (I certainly did). Still in all, I find most of the first act section to be a high quality cinematic adaptation of the stage work, with Marshall finding inventive ways to make a very talking musical more visual (this is especially helpful in Jack and Red Riding Hood's songs).

Of course, those who know Into the Woods know it takes a darker, more serious turn in the second act, and that's where the film runs into some trouble. Little important content is outright removed, but some is watered-down to a point that robs it of some its power, and which also renders it confusing (a violent death has been changed to be caused by an act that doesn't seem remotely violent enough to kill someone). And some great songs are cut, including a a variation of the song Agony (my choice as the all-time musical theatre showstopper) sung by Cinderella's Prince and his brother (Billy Magnesson) which not only robs the audience of a great moment, it robs the Prince's of some of their character and lessens the nuance of the second act (it should be noted that Pine, Magnesson and director Marshall hit the first Agony out of the. However, the overall drama and staging of the second act is still pulled off well, with the song The Last Midnight performed well by Streep and perfectly directed by Marshall to give the sequence the kind of magic only film can. . Marshall's particular gift as a filmmaker is an understanding of both the stage musical and film mediums, and blending them well (thankfully this time he abandons the "stage of my mind" motif he used in both Chicago and Nine).

All in all, I found Into the Woods to be a good film, and a good production of the musical.  But as an  adaptation , some questionable choices have been made with cuts Disneyizing. These tweaks aren't as bad as some fans feared, but they're probably enough to upset many fans nonetheless. as a film on its own merit it's great fun. It's colorful, it's energetic, it's funny, it's magical, and deeper than you might expect. AInto the Woods (Pine alone is worth the price of admission). But because of the cuts it falls short of being the all time classic the source material deserves to be.
nd I still feel it's an overall good version of

Where the stage show would be a PG-13 for violence and adult/sexual themes, the movie is toned down enough to be a Disney-friendly PG (though families who don't know the play may want to consider it an old school PG, when that wasn't the standard rating for a kids movie and PG could include more adult content, including some discreetly portrayed adultery).