Into The Woods
This is not your ordinary Disney. In fact, the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods delves into the dark underside of the Grimm Fairytales and does so quite well.
Into the Woods consolidates several well known fairy tales into one main storyline-The fight for survival.
It all starts out with the Baker(James Corden) and his wife(Emily Blunt) who find out that they have been cursed by a witch(Meryl Streep) to never have children unless they can collect four specific items before midnight strikes on the third night. Of course, these items are all entangled into various characters and fairly tales in the production which leads to a full adventure.
Director Rob Marshall (Chicago) did a great job organizing and making sure that the actors and musical numbers worked in unison as well as told the story in a great way. Chris Pine as Cinderella’s Prince steals the movie when his duet “Agony” with Rapunzel’s Prince Billy Magnussen is introduced. Some standout performances are by Blunt as the supportive yet conflicted Baker’s wife, Streep as the cursed witch desperate to reverse the curse, and Anna Kendrick who is perfectly cast as Cinderella.
As someone who has not seen the musical on Broadway, I was thoroughly entertained and fascinated that the storytelling was so well done. In fact, at some points, I even forgot that the actors were singing!
Another Disney homerun, however may be frightening for younger children.
8 out of 10 Stars.
