Into the Woods is the film version of a broadway musical that I didn’t know existed until this movie came out. It’s a mash-up of fairy tales (Cinderella, Rapnunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood) that merges them all into a single story involving a wicked witch, a baker, and his wife. And a lot of songs… hey, it’s a musical… something they cleverly hid in the original trailers.

It’s a handsome looking movie with songs that may appeal if you are familiar with the play… they largely didn’t work for me though. They are story-driven songs in a Les Mis kind of way (though far less catchy). They don’t kill the movie since they are driving the plot and not stopping it for show-stopping-type numbers. The acting (and singing) is fine. Anna Kendrick is Cinderella, Johnny Depp as the Big Bad Wolf, Meryl Streep as the witch, Emily Blunt as the baker’s wife, Tracy Ulman as Jack’s mom, and Chris Pine having a lot of dumb hambone fun as Prince Charming. Among others, of course.

Chris Pine as Charming (who romances Cinderella) and his younger brother (who romances Rapunzel) are, in my book, the high point of the movie when they sing this extremely hammy song Agony where they rend their clothes (competitively) over who is in more AGONY! over their love for their particularly ladies. The whole movie is self-aware of its fairy tale tropes but this sequence made me laugh the most.

The little girl playing Red Riding Hood and the boy playing Jack were a lot of fun. Johnny Depp as the vaguely pimped-out Big Bad Wolf sings a very creepy song that presumably was meant to sound vaguely pedophiliac… if it wasn’t, it sure feels it now.. .especially with Depp looking more human (with zoot suit and mustaches) than wolf. You could credit this to yet another “wacky” Depp performance but I’ll allow that he might just be doing what the play tells him to do.

This would have been a perfectly cute and fun mish-mash of stories if not for a fourth act that makes Return of the King seem restrained in its ending. This final act causes the movie to crash to the ground, nose-first. A sloggy, draggy, and completely unnecessary act. Possibly this worked on stage (if it existed) but it was dreary here.

I suspect fans of the (presumably real) stage play will probably love this film. Everyone else… it depends on your stamina and patience for a really unfortunate final act.

Score: 75