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.
Director: Rob Marshall
Stars: Anna Kendrick, Meryl Streep, Chris Pine, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Christine Baranski, Tracey Ullman, Johnny Depp.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2180411/
23 songs in the Soundtracks, all Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
I'm a big fan of this show, and especially the film of the stage production: Into the Woods (1991), 8+.
Saw this 2014 film in the cinema the week it was released, and rated it 7. I know I was unbelievably disappointed in the darkness of the scenes: night is just too <censored> realistically lit, ala the poster. On the big screen, that's overpoweringly true. Today I watched during the day, so the room was not totally dark.
The performances are excellent. I still adore the '91 performances, but these also have merit. My favorite song is probably Agony, and in '91 we get 2 princes with very stagey voices, and I love that. Here we get a more physical confrontation with princes who are even more handsome, but whose voices don't give the extra ferrous flavor of irony from '91.
MS is not B.Peters, but she does a great job, which I would also say about every other major character in comparison with '91.
I was smiling during most of the film today, so I'm bumping it up to 8-. I still want to wag a finger at RM for choosing the realistic lighting for this fairy tale, or maybe worse. Come to think of it, Chicago ('02) and Nine ('09) were also very darkly lit.
Rated 6.0 (122,141)
Disney & more, dir. Marshall; 8-
