Into the Woods Review Part 1
Don’t go in there.
I think I have a love/hate relationship with studio marketing departments. I love them in that they always seem to be way smarter than the actual movie director, writers, or producers. They can sniff out a stinker and pick out the few gems like a smuggler who moves diamonds inside his digestive tract in order to compose a trailer that puts asses in theater seats. They are really, really good at that.
But I hate them because they suck me in every time. I have seen a lot of really craptacular movies in my time but I honestly can’t think of a single really bad trailer. Sure you can pick out subtle clues that the film is the movie equivalent of getting your manhood slammed in a car door several times (most of those clues usually rhyme with Bichael May, Cicholas Nage, or Orberto Rorci) but most times trailers are the Judas goat leading you up the ramp.
The point is I have seen the trailer for this film dozens of times and never once got the impression that it was a freaking awful musical. A lot of you might think that I have a thing against musicals but the truth is there are several I like a great deal. 
Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast are all excellent examples of what a musical should be: a fun story with good dialog greatly enhanced by clever inspired original music destined to become iconic (I dare you to tell me you don’t know the words to the Time Warp. Image from the movie t shirt category).
(continued)
Next
Into the Woods Review Part 2
What I object to is bad musicals like this one: tertiary stories with immemorable music in place of dialog sung by people who were hired for their star appeal rather than their singing ability. The music is non stop and takes up the space normally held by dialog (thus making every dialog another glass chewing grind fest). It is punctuated by a few moments of speaking and I was grasping on those like a man trapped under the ice trying to breath little air pockets. The songs are really just two songs as sung by either a man or woman. The female songs are all rising inflection ear bleeders and the male songs angsty suicide dirges. Also I thought it was established in Sweeney Todd that Johnny Depp can’t sing (Sorry dude. I do like you a lot but this film in not your rocket car).
Then there is the story. Honestly I have always thought a new take on a classic fairy tale cold be really cool and every time I see a new one coming down the Hollywood outflow pipe I get my hopes up. 
I keep hoping to see Snow White rewritten by Chuck Palahniuk and directed by James Cameran as an Alien sequel (image courtesy of the horror movie t-shirts). Instead I keep getting brain softening rehash of better Disney movies like this one. As I have said on other cruddy multi story films (cough cough New Years Eve cough cough) when you have more than one story thread you lose connection with the audience and the problem compounds itself as you add more. This film had Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, and maybe Thumbelina and honestly by switching back and forth between the stories you never connect with any of the characters enough to care. If I were someone who had never seen or read a fairy tale I would have been both completely lost and apathetic.
(continued)
Next
Previous
