Into the Woods (2014)

A witch tasks a childless baker and his wife with procuring magical items from classic fairy tales to reverse the curse put on their family tree. Into the Woods mixed alot of famous fairy tails like Red Riding Hood and Enchanted but forgot to put the word 'magic' in them as well and the end result is a very forgettable film that even Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt and Anna Kendrick could not save from being absolutely boring. Sure the music is alright and alot of work has been put into costumes, settings and effects but that's about it cause the film is a mess of different ideas put together into one. (4/10)

A total waste. No real songs, glossed over/abbreviated stories, more so-so acting than should be in a major production, and unimaginative art direction/costumes. It's supposed to be a musical, but there aren't really any songs. It's almost entirely just sing-songy dialogue that happens to have random bits of music flitting around behind it. The fairytales either need to be "fractured" for silliness or delivered faithfully. Not just muddled for convenience-sake like this. Worst of all, no progression. Most of the way through, the husband and wife characters do a whole speech/song about how the husband's character has changed, but it hasn't. There aren't any character arcs at all by that point in the movie. Oh, and the acting. Red Riding Hood is too old, too loud, and really obnoxious. The two princes seemed very hard to believe as heterosexuals, especially during their big duet. The husband/wife seemed like a modern suburban couple (of green actors). The entire set design is dark blue/green. What's the point of having a production design budget if there's nothing to look at? And who designed Depp's Big Bad Wolf costume, or lack thereof? Not only is that lazy, but it also makes the scene seem more like a weird old man hitting on a young girl than like an animal wanting to consume her. Wrong kind of creepy, guys. Finally, I'm generally annoyed at Disney's new self-flagellating trend to appease classic-fairytale-Disneyfying haters. Once Upon a Time and other such TV shows were bad enough as examples of ironically anti-Disney products. The original versions of the fairytales that Disney adapted in the past were horrific, and I was glad to see them cleaned up and made kid-friendly. Heck, civilized-society friendly. This movie is an example of backsliding. Disney needs to stop the self-hate and embrace its tradition as a positive shaper of our modern mythology. In short, skip this movie. It's abject cultural flotsam.

Into The WoodsA dark twisted version of Disney tales that blends in perfectly and kicks off deep emotion out of this multi starrer feature where each and every character factors in as essentially as the lead ones. Musical genre being Rob Marshall's comfort zone, shines majestically off screen where each and every musical sequences defines his keen observation and passion towards his work. James Corden and Anna Kendrick at the heart of it are quite aware of their work (just as they are in every musical number) and are supported thoroughly in major and minor parts by Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Chris Pine. Into The Woods has its first act plucked out from different tales and is smartly plotted by the writers before the second act kicks in and the twist comes in where everything goes unpredictable only to make it dull and predictable for the last act that is overlong.

Those who understandably think this is a fantasy-horror movie are going to be disappointed and possibly very confused and disturbed. It's about dark psycho-social issues, or in other words : everyone's real life (=the woods) horror. Considering the analogy it's a clever idea to make this as a fantasy-horror movie, that's why i give it two points instead of one. But plenty of this in real life, don't want to go watch a movie for this. It's also spread on a bit too thick for my taste. B.t.w. the singing is part of the horror to ;).