Movie Review "Into The Woods"

An evil witch (Meryl Streep) assigns a childless baker and his wife (Emily Blunt) with finding four magical items that are needed to break a spell placed on the couple. The fairy tale story characters of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack in the Beanstalk and Rapunzel all have tasks that requires their entering “into the woods.” This film is a combination of Broadway style musical, fantasy and comedy. The story develops in an interesting way until about thirty minutes before the end of the movie. The movie would have been well served to have stopped short of it’s ending. The last thirty minutes were puzzling. It seems as if a different playwright added his own notions of how the stories should have ended. Characters suddenly mysteriously disappeared and did things that were not in keeping with the movie’s story line. Overall, this deconstruction of otherwise wonderful stories was a disappointment and missed opportunity.