The trend for darker fairytale movies, with the likes of Snow White and The Huntsman and Maleficent paving the way, continues with Disney's Into The Woods, adapting Stephen Sondheim's award winning musical of the same name. What's different here though is that several fairy tales are mashed together, with the tale of a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) cursed with being unable to bear a child by a witch (Meryl Streep). Sent into the nearby woods on a quest to break the curse, the couple find their paths crossing with several familiar fairytale characters, including Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and her Prince (Chris Pine), Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) of Jack and the Beanstalk fame, and Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) and The Wolf (Johnny Depp).
With the movie beginning with each character exclaiming their deepest wish, Into The Woods goes far beyond the usual fairytale and actually shows what 'Happily Ever After' is like for these characters once their wish is fulfilled. Run through with a darker, more adult streak than any of these tales have received before in the main stream, it's a refreshing take on fairy tales, the darkness lapping at the edges of each story represented by the foreboding woods that grow darker and more twisted as the movie marches on. Director Rob Marshall has shown a deft hand at movie musicals before with Chicago and Nine, and that hasn't escaped him here, each musical number staged perfectly, complete with a sense of magic and wonder in keeping with the source material. The wonderfully catchy songs bleed into each other perfectly, and everything is kept going at a rollicking pace.
The original stage version was an incredibly dense affair, and it is cut down considerably for the big screen, with whole plots and characters being excised, leaving only what's essential to the main story intact. This can be felt in places with certain characters, especially Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), being woefully underused, to the point of their sub-plots slowing down the pace somewhat. But that is only a minor complaint, as the story reaches a wonderful, and perfectly satisfying, conclusion.
The massive cast are perfectly suited to their roles, with James Corden and Emily Blunt a delight as the couple at the heart of the story. They spark off each other nicely, and are both incredibly likable, bringing some great humour to the screen in the early stages, but still succeeding in handling the emotional heavy lifting the later acts require of them. Anna Kendrick is also a delight, with her story throwing up some very nice changes and extra details to the overly familiar Cinderella story, which also gives us Chris Pine as a wonderfully smug and cocky Prince Charming, delivering one of the funniest musical numbers of the entire movie, Agony. Meryl Streep owns her role as the witch, who making us feel somewhat sympathetic towards her, but always exhibiting a wonderful sense of menace. The rest of the cast have slightly less to do, but still put in great performances, with Johnny Depp making the most of his small role as a very dapper Wolf.
A extremely entertaining adaption of a classic musical, Into The Woods also serves as a refreshing and human take on classic fairytales, asking the question of what 'Happily Ever After' really means.
With the movie beginning with each character exclaiming their deepest wish, Into The Woods goes far beyond the usual fairytale and actually shows what 'Happily Ever After' is like for these characters once their wish is fulfilled. Run through with a darker, more adult streak than any of these tales have received before in the main stream, it's a refreshing take on fairy tales, the darkness lapping at the edges of each story represented by the foreboding woods that grow darker and more twisted as the movie marches on. Director Rob Marshall has shown a deft hand at movie musicals before with Chicago and Nine, and that hasn't escaped him here, each musical number staged perfectly, complete with a sense of magic and wonder in keeping with the source material. The wonderfully catchy songs bleed into each other perfectly, and everything is kept going at a rollicking pace.
The original stage version was an incredibly dense affair, and it is cut down considerably for the big screen, with whole plots and characters being excised, leaving only what's essential to the main story intact. This can be felt in places with certain characters, especially Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), being woefully underused, to the point of their sub-plots slowing down the pace somewhat. But that is only a minor complaint, as the story reaches a wonderful, and perfectly satisfying, conclusion.
The massive cast are perfectly suited to their roles, with James Corden and Emily Blunt a delight as the couple at the heart of the story. They spark off each other nicely, and are both incredibly likable, bringing some great humour to the screen in the early stages, but still succeeding in handling the emotional heavy lifting the later acts require of them. Anna Kendrick is also a delight, with her story throwing up some very nice changes and extra details to the overly familiar Cinderella story, which also gives us Chris Pine as a wonderfully smug and cocky Prince Charming, delivering one of the funniest musical numbers of the entire movie, Agony. Meryl Streep owns her role as the witch, who making us feel somewhat sympathetic towards her, but always exhibiting a wonderful sense of menace. The rest of the cast have slightly less to do, but still put in great performances, with Johnny Depp making the most of his small role as a very dapper Wolf.
A extremely entertaining adaption of a classic musical, Into The Woods also serves as a refreshing and human take on classic fairytales, asking the question of what 'Happily Ever After' really means.
