Into the Woods (Film)

I don't think there's been another musical that I thought as much as I did with this one that I had watched the performance more than the movie.  Now the main redeeming part of seeing the movie is also the same thing that was holding it back for me.  That was the casting.  There's a very interesting and stacked cast here who did really well and then there's James Corden.  I am not a fan of his and I promised myself to not let me thoughts on this movie become a post about my thoughts on him so I'll just sum this disdain up with a couple words or phrases: cringe vibes and everything wrong with our fake it till you make it and then fake it till death society.  He may not be the worst, he certainly is a better singer than me, but his acting has much to be desired.  With all the other characters I was able to be immersed in them playing their characters, except for Corden.  So yes I went into this film completely blind and that's how I got blindsided by seeing him on screen and is honestly the only way that will ever happen.  When I first saw Anna Kendrick, I wondered how she'd perform as I know her so well for her character in Scott Pilgrim vs the World but she does a phenomenal job as Cinderella and owns the character so well.  But with the Baker, I felt like the movie just kept being crashed by Corden.  And in reading the backstory to how he helped the movie get greenlit, it makes it feel even more like that.  It's like what I learned in film school, on a TV show the Executive Producer has the most power on set and in feature films, the wealthiest person on set has all the power.  

But casting aside, I feel the movie was not bad.  Of course before moving on I should mention Meryl Streep and Chris Pine's performances, the former I knew would be a show stealer, but in the good kind of way and not in the previously mentioned kind of way, and Chris Pine I knew he's a good actor but I feel he was next level from what I've seen him in before with this and did great in his music performances as well.  But with casting aside for real this time, I liked the cinematography particularly in this movie.  Of course a darker vibe is a cheat code to my artistic heart, but what I appreciate with it the most is how even though it was produced by Disney, it stands at such a contrast to the Disney versions of the fairy tale stories.  It was cool they allowed them to keep elements from the original stories that normally Disney wouldn't allow in any of their films.  But from what I read online apparently the stage musical is even darker than that, which has me even more interested in checking that out.

With that said, I really want to see the stage performance of Into the Woods and have a better point of comparison for myself for what I've talked about amongst other things I've read about like the difference in nuance with the casting of Jack and Little Red Ridinghood.  Having kids in those roles in the movie with how the Jack's mother and Johnny Depp's big bad wolf act towards them, respectively, made me wonder if the movie was older than what it is since they had a very creepy vibe of abuse that I read doesn't exist in the original stage performance since adults are usually cast for those roles which gives more humor to their interactions.  I guess in spite of what I said, casting was still a big thing talked about in every part of this blog, oh well.  Like I said it was the best and the worst and most questionable thing about this movie.