Into The Woods

    It's incredibly easy to find a laundry list of flaws in Into the Woods, yet it's so incredibly likable. The bigger problem is that it's an adaptation of a source material I don't know, so it's hard to determine what's at fault with the musical and the movie. When it comes to most adaptations, it's better to review it as it's own product, since it's unfair to expect everyone to know the source material going in and a movie that changes elements from the source material can still be great in its own right. There are select case, like The Giver and Lorax movie, where the adaptations expose the Hollywood system and have to be analyzed as such, to understand what drastic changes Hollywood convolutes just to get the movie to sell to major demographics, but that's only extreme cases. Usually, my mantra is: The faults of an adaptation are that of the adaptation only, and any flaw from the source material should be fixed in the adaptation.

     That being said, Into the Woods is pretty sloppy, on a basic level. The large appeal and mass of devout fans probably has to do with the innovative story itself, the basic idea of twisting fairytales into something new, here taking 4 different popular fairytales and tying them together, centralizing it all through one couple's quest to parenthood. The idea of reinventing our favorite timeless children's stories into something darker is always anticipated and usually appreciated. Take the overwhelming success of Wicked: The Musical and the fairly high success of Maleficent even if the actual quality of the two isn't that great. The same applies here; it's a brooding yet mocking, slightly emotional twist on immortal tales that rides into success mostly on that. It all feels so middle of the road, unchallenging to the audience so they can easily like it.
    The script is never bad, per se, it's just not as overwhelmingly creative as it could've been. It's organized, easy to follow, frenetically paced to keep interest, and it does twist interestingly after the plot is seemingly over, even though that's the point where the film crumbles a bit. Yet it's not incredible: the plot involving Rapunzel, while it does humanize the villain of the witch, is scattered badly throughout the course of the film, very shoehorned in. Same goes to the plot involving Little Red Riding Hood, which seems to end very early on, while the other fairytale characters stay all throughout the movie. Red disappears for most of the film and then just becomes relevant again later on. The rest of the stories are consistently told, but a bit uneven. Important deaths that occur are flashed by oddly unceremoniously. The dark elements of the original fairytales feel out of place mostly, like it's trying to say "yeah, we totally know the original dark Grimm stories an we're super smart" without actually knowing how to smoothly work it in.
    The tone is not as haphazardly uneven as might be expected, yet still uneven enough to notice, to take you out of the movie. Characters like Prince Charming and Red feel like they're constantly winking to the audience to make fun of their stories, while other characters subtly find flaws of logic or play it straightly altogether. It's imbalanced, which is a flaw within itself, but it never even tries to go to the extremes that it occasionally dives into, to venture out of it's own little safety zone. It feels like the creators are scared to try something risky by never leaning toward a fully developed dark drama or a full satire of the stories it's based on. The middle of the road execution works well enough,. Jokes are usually funny and dramatic points usually kept interest. It's entirely watchable, but it feels like with such a creative endeavor of a premise,  there should've been more of a confidence to drive through complete comedy or complete drama, instead of playing as safe as it does.
    And the inconsistencies of development within the characters only adds to the uneven confused mess. Yet again, Red and Prince Charming are cartoonish, it feels like the two of them are almost in different movie sometimes because they're acting is generally more parodical than others. However, along with Jack, they're also more defined characters than others, (funny how the children are more developed than the adults). I can describe they're qualities a lot easier than the likes of the Baker and The Baker's Wife and Cinderella. That's another way the movie plays it safe, the characters aren't nearly developed enough to make it a dramatic character piece or satirical enough to be a full parody. The two main children, the brave and cocky Jack and the sassy, sneaky Red have personality in abundance, and so do the supporting characters, with the witch being surprisingly complex, if she's not explored nearly enough. The adult protagonists though, are simply underdeveloped. Never to the point that they're obviously cardboard, but never elevated to the point where they're truly lovable. The many conversations between the Baker and his wife are an example of this, as usually the points where they run into each other are for plot exposition and basic, basic character conflict, but there's a lack of personality, dramatic intrigue, or witty banter. The occasional songs relating directly to the personal conflicts of the couple and Cinderella add slight emotional connection, but are not nearly as deep as much as just cute. It isn't UNinteresting, but still plays it safe.
    What elevates those characters beyond "watchable if uninteresting" to "mostly engaging" are the performances. This is a true testament to the power of great performances for taking such average characterizations and creating dimensional characters that I found myself genuinely wanting to follow. Emily Blunt (Baker's Wife) and James Corden (Baker) have incredible chemistry and create as real and entertaining a couple as they could given not much to work with. Meryl Streep is a surprisingly likable half-villain with sensational emotional power that shines through her singing. It's Meryl though, she can only be sensational. Anna Kendrick is always engaging to watch, and even Johnny Depp in his short amount of time on screen is perfectly creepy. Although Red (Lilla Crawford) and Prince Charming (Chris Pine) feel off the realistic tone of the other performances, they're always entertaining in their own right. Similarly on that note of Red Riding Hood, she and Daniel Huttlestone as Jack are absolutely fantastic. They both have experience in large musical theatre and film parts and it shows. They are pros that hit every joke and dramatic point right, creating fully formed characters and easily holding their own to adults with equally large parts. They're more than just "cute" child stars, with "cute" being the standard we usually hold child stars to be. It's an incredibly talented cast that create an entertaining, full film from an unshapely, awkward script.
    What also manages to carry the movie through is the beautiful style. The lighting design is consistently beautiful, with some theatrical moments shown solely though intense spotlights and washes. The costumes are all thoroughly pretty and memorable, and the scenic design is elaborate and creates a consistent fantasyland. Both technical elements are never afraid to be grimy, which is surprising considering this is a Disney production. They create a town that's believable as an actual forest village with poor, ramshackle houses and unclean streets instead of something straight out of Fantasyland. What's even more surprising in this Disney production is the restraint on CGI. Take the live action fantasy reboots of previous popular entities that Disney has started releasing, all what I like to call the Reboot fantasy" films: Alice In Wodnerland, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Maleficent, etc. They're fantasy films absolutely laden with CGI, making them "pretty" but completely boring, repetitive, and weak after seeing it so much. Yet in Into The Woods, Disney seems to have finally learned its lesson of not forcing it on every film.  It's only used in the rarest of cases and actually adds to the magic since it's not constantly thrown in your face. The magic in the CGI means a lot more when used in moderation, it comes across as actually epic in comparison to the everyday real world the set and costume design create.
    Of course, this is a musical, so what's more important than the music? The songs, or more specifically the orchestrations, are easily one of the worst parts of the film. The lyrics range from good to extraordinary, it is Sondheim after all. The music to accompany it though, not so extraordinary. It really all sounds like one bland song, there's barely a catchy melody in the whole thing. Not much else to say about that, if the music was more memorable there would be. There are exceptions: the opening song is ominous yet upbeat, Agony is tearfully hilarious, Your Fault is incredible in its sheer complexity and frenetic energy, and the Finale is a haunting and poignant ending with a thoroughly memorable theme statement in the chorus. They all primarily work on the strength of the lyrics, but I find myself humming the main choruses of those as I write their titles, so there's something.
    There's a lot to say about Into the Woods, obviously, and I'm not sure I know exactly what to say, or that I said it all in this lengthy review. I didn't even touch on the laundry list of random little flaws present in the movie. The story feels haphazard tonally yet the movie fears being too haphazard to attempt anything outside of safety. The bottom layer of the film, the script and musical numbers, wave between great parts and awful parts. It's inconsistent yet still it's hard to hate the inconsistency, because all the layers on top of it hide the flaws of the bottom layer well. Every technical element: costumes, effect use, lighting design, set design are all perfect, and the passionate acting, even in the worst parts, has a gleeful energy to it. It's a very mixed bag, but there are more positives in the bag than negatives, and even the negatives are mild. In the scheme of "Reboot land" films from Disney, Into the Woods shows vast improvement. After the mediocre Alice in Wonderland, the plunge with mystically terrible Oz, and then the slight incline with the ok Maleficent, Into the Woods inclines higher, standing as pretty good. Let's just hope Cinderella shows further improvement.

Note after seeing Cinderella: It did not show much improvement.