![]() ![]() ![]() Depp does very well at bringing that undertone to bear, though his cheesy zoot suit get-up is distracting and his pimp hat with wolf ears is the most atrocious design in the entire film. ![]() The wolf is clearly a representation of a child predator, though his words treat her as nothing but a meaty snack. In the case of Depp, his limited vocal chops are helped by his precise delivery of the song “Hello, Little Girl.” The song, toned down for the big screen and parent company Disney, still has an edge to it. On the big name side, Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp and Chris Pine take on three roles that cannot be farther apart in terms of screen time, but whose performances are all wildly uneven. Magnussen gets too little to do to be effective while Blunt, Corden and Kendrick are the best of this film’s bunch of actors. Anna Kendrick has a following, but is far from a major name, and Billy Magnussen may only be familiar to general audience members who’ve watched a lot of daytime television or perhaps Boardwalk Empire. While Emily Blunt may have built a name for herself, her stardom is not one that would draw audiences to the theater, the same can be said of her co-lead James Corden who, until recently, was barely known to U.S. ![]() Here, the casting is a tad muddled with big names and small sharing the screen. In that adaptation’s case, Elizabeth Taylor was entirely out of place. One thing we learned from productions like A Little Night Music is that trying to get big names to star can be a severe detriment. As the first act closes, everything indeed is happy, but the second act shows that happiness is fleeting and life has too many twists and turns to truly result in a fairy tale climax. The story about a childless baker and his wife who discover a malicious curse placed by a neighborly witch and must set out into the woods in hopes of finding the four ingredients that will help break the curse, restore the witch’s beauty and bring happiness ever after to all those involved. Into the Woods while featuring some utterly spectacular performances from the likes of Anna Kendrick, James Corden and Emily Blunt, the set design is jumbled and unrealistic, some of the best numbers are entirely absent, and some actors seem entirely out of their depth. Saying that director Marshall’s vision is the best of this bunch of four isn’t saying a lot. Many of those endeavors have been largely unsuccessful, including a trimmed down, unexciting A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum a badly miscast, poorly constructed A Little Night Music a vocally challenged, misrepresentative version of Sweeney Todd and now a well sung, but meandering Into the Woods. Since the 1960’s, various artists have attempted to adapt Sondheim to the big screen. Even among those who consider Stephen Sondheim one of the greatest musical composers and lyricists in Broadway history, Into the Woods is considered a minor effort and if you were to take the adaptation Rob Marshall puts forth, you’d be quite justified in that impression. ![]()
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