Tuesday 3 February 2015

Into the Woods (the movie): review

In a way, this is the movie that had everything: good actors, , great sets and costumes, decent music... so where did it go wrong? Well, the trouble is that it lacked significant form, especially the significant part. It became nothing but a slightly extended mash-up of well-known fairy tale characters. Not being terribly familiar with the musical version, I was convinced the characters were saying it in song because if they'd stuck to dialogue the lack of meaningful content would have been too painful even for Hollywood.

Maybe I'm becoming frustrated with mash-up entertainment. Lately, I've been subjected to a huge variety of shows of all kinds which rely on a vague stitching together of stuff that's apparently been sent in or posted on YouTube. I don't think I'd give it much time normally, but it usually involves the outrageous or extraordinary and my daughter likes it. What it doesn't involve is significance.

I think the musical of Into the Woods is probably better. I have a feeling it somehow tackles the disintegration of the happy fairy tale endings and the inevitability of human discontent so much better than the film, purely by the inclusion of few little details the film left out. Also it may get away with the very cliched pantomime-like aspects of the whole spectacle better than a film does.

No comments:

Post a Comment