Film Review: Into The Woods

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I had high hopes for this film, it features some well-known actors and the concept of merging different fairy tales together seems like a good idea. Little did I know.

The film itself just ran for far too long and could’ve easily finished an hour before it did. What felt like the end of it, should’ve been the end of it, but oh no, another hour of dragged out, unnecessary storyline and singing. I’m not giving it a bad review because it’s a musical even though musicals aren’t really my thing, I can put up with it, but a film that has 90% of itself being taken up by songs is just a little too far. I feel like it tried a bit too hard to be an epic fairy tale with equally epic songs, but sometimes less is more such as with ‘Frozen’ where it has a typical storyline with a few great songs which is more effective than blaring vocals from the whole cast and music so loud it hurts your ears.  The last third of the film was even worse than I could have ever imagined they should’ve just cut this part right out, the characters morals were completely thrown out of the window at times. Some parts were one step away from being hilarious to total cringe.

Overall the visual aesthetic of the film was magnificent and the costume design, especially Meryl Streep’s blue hair) and special effects were probably the best part of the film. The woods looked dark and gloomy as you would expect but there wasn’t much variation in the location, which probably isn’t much of an issue but I feel like they could’ve done so much more with it. Generally the acting wasn’t that bad, the best character by far was Johnny Depp’s short lived portrayal of the Big Bad Wolf, but I had a problem with James Corden being the main character as I felt I couldn’t take the film as seriously as I should’ve done. Nothing annoyed me more than the girl playing Little Red Riding Hood, she was the epitome of cliché. With all that being said stand out performances came from Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick and obviously Meryl Streep who once again shines as the brightest star giving an seemingly effortless performance, it’s easy to forget she’s acting because she’s just so believable.

I really wanted to be talking about how great this film was, the acting makes it a little bit more bearable, but it drags on and on for too long the singing becomes tiresome and irritating, with too many verses in the opening song. It was so disappointing, probably the most disappointing film I’ve seen for a long time. The only thing stopping me from leaving the cinema was the hope for it to get better, but it didn’t.

Words by Olivia Walsh.

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