Skip to main content

Life is often so unpleasant. You must know that, as a peasant.

Into the Woods
(2014)

(SPOILERS) Rob Marshall tackles another musical, with all the acumen he brought to Chicago.  And non-musicals (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides). Sure, he ensures nice art direction in, but that doesn’t make a good movie. I can’t say I’m hugely au fait with Stephen Sondheim’s oeuvre (West Side Story is a classic, obviously, and the Sweeney Todd movie is diverting enough), but if this is evidence of his musical/storytelling skills he’s rather lacking (does that count as heresy?) Mash up a few fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk), sprinkle a few variable songs over the top, and attempt to shoehorn in some kind of message about what happens if you get all you dreamed of (what a spoilsport).  It’s a tepid affair, with only the occasional vital performance to perk it up.


There’s no shortage of fairy tale riffs these days, probably going back to Shrek, and we even had a Grimm specific piece a decade ago (Terry Gilliam’s ill-fated but sporadically sparky Brothers Grimm). Disney’s all over them like a rash; live action, animation, TV series, so it's no wonder they went for this one (eventually). Marshall’s movie manages to be simultaneously redundant and over-reliant on obvious stunt casting. Johnny Depp pulls a Brando cameo as a blink and you’ll miss him wolf, Meryl Streep hams it up rotten as a witch.


The picture particularly crippled by the undesirable presence of James Corden (thankfully exiling himself across the Pond and into a chat show) as the Baker/narrator. His voice is woefully ill equipped to introduce the tale, bereft of the remotest gravitas or garnish. He’s also expecting us to believe he could possibly be married to Emily Blunt.


Who is quite wonderful. As is Chris Pine, as a pompous jackass version of Captain Kirk (playing Cinderella’s prince). When these two share a scene and a song, Into the Woods momentarily comes alive. This is the only point where one gets the giddy sense of tales seeping into each other, mayhem unleashed and worlds colliding. Maybe the incredibly downbeat conclusion had more resonance on the stage (it was reportedly toned down by Disney to make the picture more family friendly) but here it just seems unnecessary and harsh in material that is essentially lightweight and frivolous.


Marshall ought to be able to marshal his great resources, but still manages to make the entire enterprise seem rather static and lifeless. Once the great wedding has taken place and the characters are lost in the woods once again, he envisages the most clueless and uncoordinated of moments; it screams of its stage origins in a most unflattering manner.


Essentially, others have done this kind of thing, and with much more verve, wit and lyricism. There’s exactly one song (It’s Your Fault) that gives a hint of what this might have been; it’s quick, clever and sharp. Elsewhere, there’s wholly too much of annoying little scamps wailing about beans and granny and the like. Tangentially, it’s nice to see (even more briefly than Depp) Frances de la Tour as the Giant’s Wife.


Marshall’s picture was inspired by Obama’s speech on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 (only in Hollywood, eh?), but you’d be hard pressed to discern any great transforming and unifying spirit in this anodyne and stillborn lump. Still, Into the Woods made money, so it should keep the stage-to-screen gravy train going a few years yet for Sondheim’s back catalogue.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…
3 comments
Read more

What we sell are hidden truths. Our territory is the mind. Our merchandise is fear.

The Avengers 5.1: The Fear Merchants
The colour era doesn't get off to such a great start with The Fear Merchants, an Avengers episode content to provide unstinting averageness. About the most notable opinion you’re likely to come away with is that Patrick Cargill rocks some magnificent shades.
Post a Comment
Read more

He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

Darkest Hour (2017)
(SPOILERS) Watching Joe Wright’s return to the rarefied plane of prestige – and heritage to boot – filmmaking following the execrable folly of the panned Pan, I was struck by the difference an engaged director, one who cares about his characters, makes to material. Only last week, Ridley Scott’s serviceable All the Money in the World made for a pointed illustration of strong material in the hands of someone with no such investment, unless they’re androids. Wright’s dedication to a relatable Winston Churchill ensures that, for the first hour-plus, Darkest Hour is a first-rate affair, a piece of myth-making that barely puts a foot wrong. It has that much in common with Wright’s earlier Word War II tale, Atonement. But then, like Atonement, it comes unstuck.
2 comments
Read more

Just make love to that wall, pervert!

Seinfeld 2.10: The Statue
The Premise
Jerry employs a cleaner, the boyfriend of an author whose book Elaine is editing. He leaves the apartment spotless, but Jerry is convinced he has made off with a statue.
Post a Comment
Read more

Never compare me to the mayor in Jaws! Never!

Ghostbusters (2016)
(SPOILERS) Paul Feig is a better director than Ivan Reitman, or at very least he’s savvy enough to gather technicians around him who make his films look good, but that hasn’t helped make his Ghostbusters remake (or reboot) a better movie than the original, and that’s even with the original not even being that great a movie in the first place.

Along which lines, I’d lay no claims to the 1984 movie being some kind of auteurist gem, but it does make some capital from the polarising forces of Aykroyd’s ultra-geekiness on the subject of spooks and Murray’s “I’m just here for the asides” irreverence. In contrast, Feig’s picture is all about treating the subject as he does any other genre, be it cop, or spy, or romcom. There’s no great affection, merely a reliably professional approach, one minded to ensure that a generous quota of gags (on-topic not required) can be pumped out via abundant improv sessions.

So there’s nothing terribly wrong with Ghostbusters, but aside from …
Post a Comment
Read more

Do not run a job in a job.

Ocean’s 8 (2018)
(SPOILERS) There’s nothing wrong with the gender-swapped property per se, any more than a reboot, remake or standard sequel exploiting an original’s commercial potential (read: milking it dry). As with those more common instances, however, unless it ekes out its own distinctive territory, gives itself a clear reason to be, it’s only ever going to be greeted with an air of cynicism (whatever the current fashion for proclaiming it valid simply because it's gender swapped may suggest to the contrary).  The Ocean's series was pretty cynical to start with, of course – Soderbergh wanted a sure-fire hit, the rest of the collected stars wanted the kudos of working with Soderbergh on a "classy" crowd pleaser, the whole concept of remaking the '60s movie was fairly lazy, and by the third one there was little reason to be other than smug self-satisfaction – so Ocean's 8 can’t be accused of letting any side down. It also gives itself distinctively – stereo…
Post a Comment
Read more

There’s still one man out here some place.

Sole Survivor (1970)
(SPOILERS) I’m one for whom Sole Survivor remained a half-remembered, muddled dream of ‘70s television viewing. I see (from this site) the BBC showed it both in 1979 and 1981 but, like many it seems, in my veiled memory it was a black and white picture, probably made in the 1950s and probably turning up on a Saturday afternoon on BBC2. Since no other picture readily fits that bill, and my movie apparition shares the salient plot points, I’ve had to conclude Sole Survivor is indeed the hitherto nameless picture; a TV movie first broadcast by the ABC network in 1970 (a more famous ABC Movie of the Week was Spielberg’s Duel). Survivor may turn out to be no more than a classic of the mind, but it’s nevertheless an effective little piece, one that could quite happily function on the stage and which features several strong performances and a signature last scene that accounts for its haunting reputation.

Directed by TV guy Paul Stanley and written by Guerdon Trueblood (The…
Post a Comment
Read more

It’s all Bertie Wooster’s fault!

Jeeves and Wooster 3.4: Right Ho, Jeeves  (aka Bertie Takes Gussie's Place at Deverill Hall)
A classic set-up of crossed identities as Bertie pretends to be Gussie and Gussie pretends to be Bertie. The only failing is that the actor pretending to be Gussie isn’t a patch on the original actor pretending to be Gussie. Although, the actress pretending to be Madeline is significantly superior than her predecessor(s).
Post a Comment
Read more

I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, part to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Along with Pain & Gain and The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street might be viewed as the completion of a loose 2013 trilogy on the subject of success and excess; the American Dream gone awry. It’s the superior picture to its fellows, by turns enthralling, absurd, outrageous and hilarious. This is the fieriest, most deliriously vibrant picture from the director since the millennium turned. Nevertheless, stood in the company of Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese film from which The Wolf of Wall Street consciously takes many of its cues, it is found wanting.

I was vaguely familiar with the title, not because I knew much about Jordan Belfort but because the script had been in development for such a long time (Ridley Scott was attached at one time). So part of the pleasure of the film is discovering how widely the story diverges from the Wall Street template. “The Wolf of Wall Street” suggests one who towers over the city like a behemoth, rather than a guy …
Post a Comment
Read more

Do you read Sutter Cane?

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
(SPOILERS) The concluding chapter of John Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy (preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness) is also, sadly, his last great movie. Indeed, it stands apart in the qualitative wilderness that beset him during the ‘90s (not for want of output). Michael De Luca’s screenplay had been doing the rounds since the ‘80s, even turned down by Carpenter at one point, and it proves ideal fodder for the director, bringing out the best in him. Even cinematographer Gary K Kibbe seems inspired enough to rise to the occasion. It could do without the chugging rawk soundtrack, perhaps, but then, that was increasingly where Carpenter’s interests resided (as opposed to making decent movies).
Post a Comment
Read more