Into the Woods review

        After the awards buzz and accolades that surrounded the 2013's cinematic adaptation of “Les Miserables,” it was only natural that another well regarded Broadway production would make it's way into the next year's crop of holiday releases. Disney's reworking of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's “Into the Woods” is a gleefully traditional musical comedy full of big stars doing big hammy performances, and it's camera-winking dorkiness is probably the most endearing thing about it. Though director Rob Marshall ("Chicago," "Nine") uses his mouse-house money to fully realize the fantasy world in which these intertwining stories take place, on some level, the movie still operates like a high-budget, high school musical staring the most popular jocks and cheerleaders of Hollywood, and within that tonal imagining there's definitely a charm to be had, but the film never quite makes the impact that the cast or the budget would suggest.

        In an extended overture we are introduced to this fairy tale mash-up world where in the same village lives Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) and the Big Bad Wolf (Johnny Depp), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and Prince Charming (Chris Pine), Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), and Jack of the beanstalk fame (Daniell Huddleston). In the background while these stories play themselves out more or less like we have seen before, the primary plot focuses on baker and his wife played by James Cordon and Emily Blunt, who desperately want to have a child and who find themselves manipulated by a witch (Meryl Streep). Together they orchestrate all of these tales in such a way that they can obtain the items they need to perform a fertility spell. It's all very convoluted and for the most part incidental when giving in to the mindless joy of watching our favorite Grim's fairy tales unfold this ironic, post-modern context. Later, when the second half kicks into gear and adds a 'be careful what you wish for' twist to every premature happy ending, the movie oddly runs out of creative juice and the amicable tone of the first half of the film is replaced with ponderous and severely unearned character dilemmas.

         The cast is obviously having fun here and are given license to fully send-up the cliches attached to their stories and their character's. Chris Pine's turn as the egomaniac Prince Charming and Streep, who's doing her best Margaret Hamilton impersonation, keep things lively and funny. Blunt and Cordon also do a fine enough job working as the glue that keeps these dispirit plots from overwhelming the spinal narrative, but it's Marshall's lackluster visual design and directorial blandness that chains this movie to the floor and keeps it from fully taking flight. Much of this production is lit in muted blues and grays and creates for a dreary, damp looking post-Burton conceptual expression that doesn't reflect the buoyancy of the performances or Sondheim's varied musical numbers. Many scenes are shot in traditional coverage, composed mostly of simple masters, close-ups and over the shoulder shots, without hardly any swooping cranes, impressive single-takes or even occasional grandiose establishing shots that would open up the frame, resulting in musical set-pieces that feel small and televisual.
       Far less melodramatic or irritating as last-year's overlong “Les Miz”, and with sing-along musical sequences that are more confidently and skillfully performed, recorded and mixed, “Into the Woods” is a benign, if somewhat banal, movie going experience. Family's who're looking to escape the polar-vortex and/or the discomfort of having to talk to each other will most likely enjoy the majority what they see here, even if by the last thirty minutes they might be thinking more about their holiday dinner leftovers than how the movie will be resolved.

Grade: C+  

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Jan-2015

The Giver review

                As it turns out, I was the only American in my age group who wasn’t encouraged to read Lois Lowry’s “The Giver” in middle school. For many, this young-adult utopian science-fiction novel was a significant literary moment in their lives and is regarded with the utmost reverence. I was there for The Hobbit, R.L. Stine, and, though a little too old to fully appreciate it, I was even there for the early Harry Potter buzz. Nevertheless, I completely missed this phenomenon and wasn’t even aware of “The Giver” until a few friends of mine begun complaining about the trailers for its recent movie adaptation.

                In the wake of politically-minded YA sci-fi adaptations such as “The Hunger Games” and its shameless clones “Divergent” and the upcoming “Maze Runner,” it makes perfect sense that the suits in Hollywood would choose this pop-culture moment to green-light Lowry’s 1993 novel. In toeing the line of this tween-friendly genre, this adaptation has been given a slick CW makeover, with just enough cold austerity to imply the type of thematic depth, to which these kinds of films usually can’t commit. That is why, despite its mercenary attempts at cashing-in, it is both surprising and nice to say that this film works pretty well, even if it simply functions without a whole lot of pizazz. 

                In the distant future, society has bubbled itself into a tight-knit, highly-monitored community that is able to exist without pain, suffering, war or hunger. Children are studied at a young age for specific attributes and skills and are placed into jobs on their eighteenth birthday by the Chief Elder, played with a sinister calm by Meryl Streep. Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is a chosen last in his graduating class to work, not as a scientist or laborer, but as a special archivist called The Receiver. This work consists of intensive sessions where he shares psychic memories of the old-world with an elder called ‘The Giver’ (Jeff Bridges) behind the walls of an isolated library restricted to the outside public. With these memories comes a heightened sensitivity to both the extreme joys of music, diversity, and love, as well as the depressing realities of, sickness, prejudice and war. Jonas is then left to decide whether to share the raw truth with everyone else or work keep it concealed.

                Tellingly, the cinematography conveys Jonas’ psychological arc from a worker bee to a revolutionary through the use of color, beginning with the first item he notices, a brilliant red apple. After his first few sessions, everything else begins to fade out of the digital grayscale into muted pastels, ending in a color explosion.  This depiction of enlightenment of course brings to mind Dorothy’s journey in “The Wizard of OZ” as well the biblical story of Adam and Eve, as their knowledge of good and evil also began with fruit.  Politically, the story’s Stepford-society recalls films made during the height of post-soviet red-scare and unlike the socialist-leanings of Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games” adaptations, this story’s more concerned with possible threat of government controlled egalitarianism.  But, lest we get too caught up in the barely-coded ethos of the source material, the movie itself moves from point A to B with little fuss and sufficiently rewards those who’re willing to accept its middling ambitions.

                Thwaites blank-slate performance unfortunately never matures as his character is supposed to be encumbered by the painful realities of the truth, and as a hero he ultimately fails to inspire much empathy. However, veteran director Phillip Noyce, better known for adult spy-thrillers such as “Clear and Present Danger” and “Patriot Games,” paces the film deliberately and with enough care and attention to the dramatic beats of the story that the movie is occasionally able to do the actors’ work without their help.  Key scenes are skimmed over in montage, leaving the emotional component slightly underdeveloped, but as a cursory introduction to dystopian fiction, “The Giver” at least tries to infuse the YA genre with enough visual creative dynamism to keep things interesting.

Grade: C+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014