Into the Woods (2014)

If you were warned not to go into the woods… would you still go in? In December 2014, A couple knew the dangers that the woods held, yet their reason for going was worth the risk.

Directing this 125 minute adventure/comedy/fantasy is Rob Marshall.

Singing to the tunes are: Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, James Corden as Baker, Emily Blunt as Baker’s Wife, Daniel Huttlestone as Jack, Tracey Ullman as Jack’s Mother, Lilla Crawford as Little Red Riding Hood, Johnny Depp as Wolf, Chris Pine as Cinderella’s Prince, Mackenzie Mauzy as Rapunzel, Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel’s Prince and Meryl Streep as Witch.

A baker and his wife want to have a baby. Problem is, they found out the baker is cursed due to an encounter between a witch and his parents. To lift the curse the baker needs to find some items and bring them to the witch. What and who he encounters along the way of his adventure is something you would only find… in a fairytale.

This flick is based on the musical Into the Woods (1986) that was written by James Lapine and which Stephen Sondeim did the music for. Then, Lapin sat down and wrote the screenplay for the film. Now, the basis for the musical came from a book called The Uses of Enchantment (1976), that was written by Bruno Bettelheim.

Even though I’m not a big musical fan, I did like the story. It covers a few fairy tale stories like Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel that we’ve all heard probably a thousand times, but tells them in a bit of a different way. I did like how they blended everyone’s stories together into one big story. All told, I thought everything flowed smoothly from story to story.

I have to say that the set decoration that Anna Pinnock did was grand work. Then add in the costume design by Colleen Atwood and everything looked amazing. I guess when you have a 50 million dollar budget you’ve got a little room to make things shine.

Acting wise, the cast was really good and the cast line up is full of star power. Sadly, as good of a job as everyone did acting, I didn’t care so much for the singing parts. The first thing that caught me was the pairing of Corden and Blunt during their duets, I didn’t feel like their voices blended well together. Next was Depp’s character the Wolf. Now, I’m used to Depp always standing out in any film he’s in, but this time that wasn’t a good thing. The look of the Wolf, or character design, just didn’t fit in with the rest of the look of the film. Unfortunately, I feel like we have hit a point where having Depp in a film… isn’t always a good thing.