Into The Woods
INTO THE WOODS (PG)
D: Rob Marshall
Disney / Lucamar (Rob Marshall, John DeLuca, Marc Platt & Callum McDougall)
US 🇺🇸 2014
124 mins
Musical/Fantasy
W: James Lapine [based on the stage musical by Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine]
DP: Dion Beebe
Ed: Wyatt Smith
Mus: Stephen Sondheim
PD: Dennis Gassner
Cos: Colleen Atwood
Meryl Streep (The Witch), James Corden (The Baker), Emily Blunt (The Baker’s Wife), Anna Kendrick (Cinderella), Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince), Johnny Depp (The Big Bad Wolf), Daniel Huttlestone (Jack)
Into The Woods is a live action pantomime, amalgamating various fairytales with incessant Stephen Sondheim songs, so it’s basically a filmed version of the musical stage play with more expensive production values.
Meryl Streep plays a witch who has cast a spell on a baker & his wife who yearn to have children. To break the spell, the must venture into the woods and collect various artefacts from well-known fairytales and pay the witch with them.
I’m not a huge fan of musicals, but this wasn’t a deal-breaker for me not to enjoy this film, that was done by James Corden’s awful performance, which is made even worse by his grating narration.
Honestly, I have no idea how this guy gets work.Â
The positives of the film are that the production design, costumes, makeup and cinematography are of the highest standard you’d expect from a Disney production, but I didn’t care for the shrill songs for a single moment and didn’t find a single one particularly memorable.
I’m also baffled as to why Meryl Streep received an Oscar nomination for this, simply for appearing old and ugly.
There will be people who enjoy this, but it didn’t hold any appeal for me at all.
5/10
