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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: James Corden

Monthly Roundup – May 2018

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Adam Robitel, Air Hawks, Alanna Forte, Albert S. Rogell, Alden Ehrenreich, Alex Richanbach, Alex Skarlatos, Andy Milligan, Animation, Aviation, Bath house, Beatrix Potter, Bedelia, Bernard Charnacé, Betsy-Blue English, CGI, Clint Eastwood, Comedy, David Leitch, Deadpool 2, DJ, Domhnall Gleeson, Don Michael Paul, Drama, Emilia Clarke, Enemies Closer, From Hell to the Wild West, Gabrielle Haugh, Gerard Jacuzzo, Gillian Jacobs, Graboids, Han Solo, Homosexuality, Horror, Ian Hunter, Ibiza, Insidious: The Last Key, Jack the Ripper, James Corden, James Stewart, Jamie Kennedy, Jean Rollin, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jeepers Creepers 3, Jesse V. Johnson, Josh Brolin, Lance Comfort, Lin Shaye, Louis Mandylor, Maggie Grace, Margaret Lockwood, Marvel, Michael Gross, Murder, Mutants, Mystery, Navy Blue and Gold, Newhaven Fort, Peter Hyams, Peter Rabbit, Prankz., Prequel, Ralph Bellamy, Rene Perez, Reviews, Robert Dahdah, Robert Kovacs, Robert Young, Romance, Ron Howard, Rose Byrne, Russell Peters, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Wood, Sci-fi, Scott Adkins, Sequel, Simone Rollin, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Spencer Stone, Stan Shaw, Supercon, Superhero, Tala Birell, The 15:17 to Paris, The Creeper, The Debt Collector, The Mask of Medusa, Thriller, Tom Everett Scott, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell, True story, Vapors, Victor Salva, Warren Dudley, Will Gluck, Zak Knutson

Enemies Closer (2013) / D: Peter Hyams / 85m

Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Orlando Jones, Linzey Cocker, Christopher Robbie, Zachary Baharov, Dimo Alexiev, Kris Van Damme

Rating: 5/10 – when a plane carrying drugs crash lands in the waters off King’s Island it’s up to ranger (and ex-Navy Seal) Henry Taylor (Scott) to stop mercenary Xander (Van Damme) and his men from retrieving the cargo; a bone-headed action movie with a flamboyant performance from Van Damme, Enemies Closer is saved from complete disaster by Hyams’ confident direction and cinematography, a script that often seems aware of how silly it all is, and an earnest turn from Scott that eschews the usual macho heroics expected from something that, in essence, is Die Hard on a Small Island.

From Hell to the Wild West (2017) / D: Rene Perez / 77m

Cast: Robert Kovacs, Alanna Forte, Charlie Glackin, Karin Brauns, Robert Bronzi, Sammy Durrani

Rating: 3/10 – a masked serial killer sets up home in a ghost town in California, until a Marshall (Kovacs) and a bounty hunter (Bronzi) team up to end his reign of terror; a low budget horror with an interesting premise, From Hell to the Wild West is let down by poor production values, terrible acting, the kind of Easter eggs that stick out like a sore thumb (Bronzi was a stunt double for Charles Bronson, and his character name is Buchinski), a threadbare plot, and occasional stabs at direction by Perez – all of which make it yet another horror movie that’s a chore to sit through.

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018) / D: Don Michael Paul / 98m

Cast: Michael Gross, Jamie Kennedy, Tanya van Graan, Jamie-Lee Money, Kiroshan Naidoo, Keeno Lee Hector, Rob van Vuuren, Adrienne Pearce, Francesco Nassimbeni, Paul de Toit

Rating: 4/10 – Burt Gummer (Gross) and his son, Travis (Kennedy), are called in when Graboid activity is discovered in the Canadian tundra, and threatens a research facility; number six in the series, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell marks a serious downturn in quality thanks to dreary plotting, cardboard characters, and absentee suspense, and supports the notion that the franchise should be put to bed (even though there’s a TV series on the horizon), something that not even the continued presence of Gross can mitigate against, or the producers.

The Debt Collector (2018) / D: Jesse V. Johnson / 96m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, Vladimir Kulich, Michael Paré, Tony Todd, Rachel Brann, Esteban Cueto, Jack Lowe

Rating: 5/10 – a financially strapped martial arts instructor, French (Adkins), takes on a job as a debt collector for a local gangster, and finds himself elbow deep in unexpected violence and the search for someone who may or may not have swindled one of the debtors on his list; though breezy and easy-going, and replete with fight scenes designed to show off Adkins prowess as an action hero, The Debt Collector gets bogged down by its neo-noir-style script, and a plethora of supporting characters that come and go without making an impact, or contributing much to the story.

Air Hawks (1935) / D: Albert S. Rogell / 68m

Cast: Ralph Bellamy, Tala Birell, Wiley Post, Douglass Dumbrille, Robert Allen, Billie Seward, Victor Kilian, Robert Middlemass, Geneva Mitchell, Wyrley Birch, Edward Van Sloan

Rating: 6/10 – a small-time independent airline finds itself being sabotaged by a rival airline in its attempts to win a transcontinental contract from the government; a mash-up of aviation drama and sci-fi elements (Van Sloan’s character operates a “death ray” from the back of a truck), Air Hawks is the kind of sincerely acted and directed nonsense that Hollywood churned out by the dozens during the Thirties, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless, with eager performances from Bellamy and Kilian, nightclub scenes that don’t feel out of place at all(!), and a knowing sense of how silly it all is.

Supercon (2018) / D: Zak Knutson / 100m

Cast: Russell Peters, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Brooks Braselman, Clancy Brown, John Malkovich, Mike Epps, Caroline Fourmy

Rating: 3/10 – at a TV/artists/superhero convention, a group of friends decide to rob the promoter and at the same time, stick it to an overbearing TV icon (Brown) as payback for the way they’ve been treated; somewhere – though buried deep – inside the mess that is Supercon is a great idea for a movie set at a fantasy convention centre, but this dire, uninspired comedy isn’t it, lacking as it does real laughs, any conviction, and consistent direction, all things that seemed to have been “refused entry” at the earliest stages of production.

The 15:17 to Paris (2018) / D: Clint Eastwood / 94m

Cast: Spencer Stone, Alex Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, Ray Corasani, P.J. Byrne, Thomas Lennon, William Jennings, Bryce Gheisar, Paul-Mikél Williams

Rating: 6/10 – the true story of how three friends, two of whom (Stone, Skarlatos) were American servicemen, tackled and overcame a gun-toting terrorist on a train bound for Paris from Amsterdam in August 2015; with the terrorist incident being dealt with in a matter of minutes, The 15:17 to Paris has to pad out its running time, and does so by showing how the three friends met and grew up, and their progress through Europe until that fateful train ride, a decision that works well in introducing the trio, but which makes this in some ways more of a rites of passage-cum-travelogue movie than the incisive thriller it wants to be.

The Mask of Medusa (2009) / D: Jean Rollin / 73m

Original title: Le masque de la Méduse

Cast: Simone Rollin, Bernard Charnacé, Sabine Lenoël, Thomas Smith, Marlène Delcambre

Rating: 5/10 – a retelling of the classical story of the Gorgon presented in two parts; Rollin’s final project, The Mask of Medusa is much more of an experimental movie than you’ll find amongst his usual work, but it has a starkly defined approach that allows the largely idiosyncratic dialogue room to work, and the austere nature of the visuals has an unnerving effect that works well at times with the narrative, but it’s also an experience that offers little in the way of intellectual or emotional reward for the viewer, which makes this something of a disappointment as Rollin’s last movie.

Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017) / D: Victor Salva / 101m

Cast: Stan Shaw, Gabrielle Haugh, Brandon Smith, Meg Foster, Jordan Salloum, Chester Rushing, Jason Bayle, Ryan Moore, Jonathan Breck

Rating: 3/10 – the Creeper targets anyone who comes near the truck he collects his victims in, as well as the members of a family he terrorised originally twenty-three years before; set between the first and second movies, Jeepers Creepers 3 suffers from tortuous sequelitis, with Salva stretching the franchise’s time frame out of whack, and failing to provide viewers with the scares and thrills seen in the original movie, something that, though predictable, doesn’t bode well for the already in gestation Part Four.

Navy Blue and Gold (1937) / D: Sam Wood / 94m

Cast: Robert Young, James Stewart, Florence Rice, Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore, Tom Brown, Samuel S. Hinds, Paul Kelly, Barnett Parker, Frank Albertson

Rating: 7/10 – three new recruits to the United States Naval Academy (Young, Stewart, Brown) battle their own individual problems, as well as trying to make the grade; a patriotic flag waver of a movie, and cinematic recruitment drive for the US Navy, Navy Blue and Gold features likeable performances from all three “cadets”, the usual soap opera elements to help keep the plot ticking over, and Barrymore doing yet another variation on his crusty old man persona, all of which, along with Wood’s erstwhile direction, ensure the movie is pleasant if undemanding.

Bedelia (1946) / D: Lance Comfort / 90m

Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Ian Hunter, Barry K. Barnes, Anne Crawford, Beatrice Varley, Louise Hampton, Jill Esmond

Rating: 7/10 – a woman (Lockwood), married for the second time, comes under the suspicion of an artist (Barnes) who believes her husband (Hunter) is likely to end up dead – just as her first husband did; a clever piece of melodrama from the novel by Vera Caspary, Bedelia doesn’t quite ratchet up the suspense as it goes along, but it does offer a fine performance from Lockwood as a femme with the emphasis on fatale, and occasional psychological details that help keep Bedelia herself from appearing evil for evil’s sake.

Peter Rabbit (2018) / D: Will Gluck / 95m

Cast: James Corden, Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Sam Neill, Elizabeth Debicki, Daisy Ridley, Sia, Colin Moody

Rating: 7/10 – when the farmer (Neill) who continually tries to stop Peter Rabbit (Corden) and his friends stealing from his vegetable garden drops dead, so begins a war of attrition with his grandnephew (Gleeson); as a modern updating of Beatrix Potter’s beloved characters, purists might want to stay away from Peter Rabbit, but this is a colourful, immensely charming (if occasionally cynical) tale that is both funny and sweet, and which falls just the right side of being overwhelmingly saccharine.

Insidious: The Last Key (2018) / D: Adam Robitel / 103m

Cast: Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Kirk Acevedo, Caitlin Gerard, Spencer Locke, Josh Stewart, Tessa Ferrer, Bruce Davison, Javier Botet

Rating: 6/10 – Elise Rainier (Shaye) is forced to come face to face with a demon from her childhood, as it targets members of her brother’s family; another trip into the Further reveals signs of the franchise beginning to cannibalise itself in the search for newer, scarier installments, though at least Insidious: The Last Key has the ever reliable Shaye to add a layer of sincerity to the usual hokey paranormal goings on, and one or two scares that do actually hit the mark, but this should be more way more effective than it actually is.

Deadpool 2 (2018) / D: David Leitch / 119m

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapicic, Eddie Marsan, Rob Delaney, Lewis Tan, Bill Skarsgård, Terry Crews

Rating: 8/10 – everyone’s favourite Merc with a Mouth is called upon to protect a teenage mutant (Dennison) with pyro abilities from a time-travelling half-man, half-cyborg called Cable (Brolin); any worries about Deadpool 2 not living up to the hype and being a letdown are dispensed with by more meta jokes than you can shake a pair of baby legs at, the same extreme levels of bloody violence as the first movie, and the opening title sequence, which gleefully advertises the fact that it’s directed by “one of the directors who killed the dog in John Wick”.

Vapors (1965) / D: Andy Milligan / 32m

Cast: Robert Dahdah, Gerard Jacuzzo, Hal Sherwood, Hal Borske, Richard Goldberger, Larry Ree

Rating: 7/10 – set in a bath house for homosexuals, first-timer Thomas (Jacuzzo) ends up sharing a room with married man, Mr Jaffee (Dahdah), who in between interruptions by some of the other patrons, tells him a disturbing personal story; an absorbing insight into both the freedom of expression afforded gay men by the confines of a bath house, as well as the personal stories that often have a tragic nature to them, Vapors is a redolent and pungent exploration of a milieu that few of us will have any experience of, and which contains content that is still relevant today.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) / D: Ron Howard / 135m

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Paul Bettany, Joonas Suotamo, Donald Glover, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Thandie Newton, Jon Favreau, Linda Hunt

Rating: 6/10 – Han Solo (Ehrenreich), a pilot for the Imperial Empire, breaks away from the Empire to work with smuggler Tobias Beckett (Harrelson) in an attempt to rescue his lover Qi’ra (Clarke) from their home planet – but it’s not as easy as it first seems; a movie that spends too much time reminding audiences that its main character has a chequered history, Solo: A Star Wars Story is a series of admittedly entertaining action sequences in search of a coherent story to wrap around them, but hamstrung by a bland lead performance, and another round of secondary characters you can’t connect with.

Prankz. (2017) / D: Warren Dudley / 71m

Cast: Betsy-Blue English, Elliot Windsor, Ray d James, Isabelle Rayner, Sharon Drain

Rating: 3/10 – six vlogs, two of which were never uploaded, show a footballer (Windsor), his girlfriend (English), and his best friend (James), playing pranks on each other, until a planned prank backfires with horrific consequences; an object lesson in how not to make a found footage horror movie, Prankz. is low budget awfulness personified, and as far from entertaining, or scary, or credible, or worth your time as it’s possible to be, which is the only achievement this dire movie is able to claim.

Ibiza (2018) / D: Alex Richanbach / 94m

Cast: Gillian Jacobs, Vanessa Bayer, Phoebe Robinson, Michaela Watkins, Richard Madden, Nelson Dante, Anjela Nedyalkova, Jordi Mollá

Rating: 3/10 – tasked with clinching a business deal in Barcelona, Harper (Jacobs) not only takes along her two best friends (Bayer, Robinson), but falls for a DJ (Madden) whose next gig is in Ibiza – where she determines to find him, even if it puts the deal in jeopardy; a romantic comedy that is neither romantic or funny – desperate is a more appropriate description – Ibiza is so bad that it’s yet another Netflix movie that you can’t believe was ever given a green light, or that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay stayed on board as producers once they saw the script (or what passes for one).

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Kill Your Friends (2015)

14 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Black comedy, Blackmail, Craig Roberts, Drama, Drugs, Ed Skrein, Georgia King, James Corden, John Niven, Junkie XL, Literary adaptation, Murder, Music industry, Nicholas Hoult, Owen Harris, Review, Unigram

Kill Your Friends

D: Owen Harris / 103m

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Craig Roberts, Georgia King, Joseph Mawle, Edward Hogg, Tom Riley, Jim Piddock, James Corden, Ed Skrein, Rosanna Arquette, Moritz Bleibtreu, Dustin Demri-Burns, Osy Ikhile, Ella Smith

For a movie that’s set in 1997 and focuses on an ambitious A&R man, Kill Your Friends actually has little to do with the music of the time (except when it comes to its soundtrack), and instead creates its own musicians and bands for the audience to groove to. It’s a curious thing to experience, that such a movie would choose to ignore the music that was around at the time, especially when there was so many good records out there. ’97 was the year that The Verve gave us their Bitter Sweet Symphony, Chumbawamba were Tubthumping, Natalie Imbruglia was Torn, and Elton John reworked Candle in the Wind in tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales. But Kill Your Friends operates in a bubble of its own making, restricting itself to a narrow musical world where the deal is all important and not the music, and the means absolutely justifies the end.

That the world of the A&R man is a cutthroat world where everyone is out to succeed at the expense of everyone else shouldn’t come as any surprise, but the movie is often grindingly obvious in its approach to this idea, and the level to which it takes this idea is often glaringly excessive. The movie’s anti-hero, Steven Stelfox (Hoult), is determined to get to the top and he’s not too worried how he gets there. When we first meet him he’s in the company of fellow A&R man Waters (Corden), snorting cocaine and mixing drug-fuelled cocktails in an attempt to render his colleague either dead or too far gone to function. (Sadly for Steven, Waters’ ability to ingest hard drugs and still come to work the next day is quite impressive.)

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With record deals to be made and hits to be manufactured, Steven takes a young talent scout called Darren (Roberts) under his wing, and starts to teach him how to get ahead in the music business. But Steven’s idea of “teaching” consists of constant reminders that no one knows anything (as in the movie industry?), and to misquote Sparks, that “talent isn’t an asset”. When an old friend of Steven’s, Rent (Skrein), introduces him to the girl band he’s managing, it’s no surprise that they’re four tuneless, talentless wannabes, manufactured into producing a “surprise” number one record. It’s at moments like these that the satire slaps the viewer in the face and yells, “Did you see what we did there? Did you?” If the movie wasn’t so tiresome and cynical, the viewer wouldn’t be either.

As Steven connives and manipulates and eventually murders his way to the top, the movie does its best to get the audience to root for him, but it’s not actually possible. Despite Hoult’s best efforts to make him likeable, Steven is a crude caricature of a man, his better qualities stifled to the point of non-existence and lacking any kind of moral attributes – however deeply buried – for the viewer to latch onto. He’s an ambitious, soulless, predatory, evil-minded bastard, a lower-tier monster who doesn’t deserve to make it to the top, or gain our attention. There’s a moment when he’s talking to a band in a club and they’re asking him what will happen if they sign with his record company. For around thirty seconds Steven regales them with the various ways in which he and his company will abuse and mistreat them, and then spit them out when they’re no longer viable. It’s meant to be funny and disturbingly honest all at the same time, but instead it’s another heavy-handed example of what we already know: that in the music industry you should always beware: because you’re swimming with sharks. (And, predictably, it’s all a dream sequence.)

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With the movie lacking subtlety or appreciable flair throughout, there’s little beyond the traditional topics of sex and drugs and work envy to get excited about. Owen Harris’s direction consists of throwing the characters into sharp relief, such as when Steven’s PA, the equally ambitious Rebecca (King), blackmails him into helping her reach the top. It’s not exactly a surprise – this movie doesn’t do surprises – and most viewers will have been waiting for her to drop the faithful servant routine, but as one of the few characters we can have some sympathy for (at least to start with), her transformation into calculating co-conspirator smacks of laziness on the part of John Niven (here adapting his own novel).

With so much amoral, yet banal behaviour going on, it’s amazing then that the movie retains as much energy as it does, claiming the viewer’s undivided attention from time to time (often in its club scenes) and using said energy to push the rest of the scenes through in a kind of bizarre version of cinematic life support. There are also sporadic moments of humour, but none memorable enough to help the movie overall, and certainly not enough to help erase the memory of Edward Hogg’s dumb-as-a-bag-of-nails policeman, a character so brain-curdlingly simplistic in his creation that he’s not even of the rank of caricature.

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But what of the music itself? As created by Junkie XL (aka Tom Holkenborg), the original songs are the movie’s best feature, an apropos mix of Nineties indie vitality and modern day stylings, anthemic when necessary, and completely free of any relevance to the story or the plot. You could take each tune and play it in a club or music venue and attract people’s attention. It’s the same here, and leads the viewer to wonder if there’s a cut of the movie where every scene takes place in a club or at a concert. But anyone paying attention will appreciate the dichotomy of what the movie is saying, that the music isn’t important, that it’s the last element of the deal that’s taken into consideration, but thanks to Mr Holkenborg and his “killer” tunes, it’s a boast that Kill Your Friends gets spectacularly wrong.

Rating: 4/10 – if you’re going to make a movie about the cutthroat nature of the music industry, then it’s important that your characters are at least halfway relatable – a point that Kill Your Friends ignores deliberately – otherwise it will look and sound like the naïve fantasy of a teenager; with thematic nods to American Psycho (2000) that are awkward and misjudged, this is a movie that skimps on the pleasantries and drags the viewer through a mire of its own choosing, and without ever offering said viewer any reward for the experience.

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Trailer – The Lady in the Van (2015)

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alan Bennett, Comedy, Dominic Cooper, Drama, James Corden, Maggie Smith, Preview, Trailer, True story

Promising yet another spirited, and occasionally vulgar performance from the ever-reliable Maggie Smith, The Lady in the Van looks and feels like another British movie that will tug on the heartstrings while also having its audience laughing at the more absurd elements of this true story. With a script by Alan Bennett taken from his own experiences, and featuring a supporting cast that includes James Corden, Dominic Cooper and Jim Broadbent, this may not set the box office alight, but it should find a place in several moviegoers’ hearts when it hits our screens.

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Into the Woods (2014)

12 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Anna Kendrick, Cinderella, Drama, Emily Blunt, Fairy tales, Jack and the Beanstalk, James Corden, Johnny Depp, Little Red Riding Hood, Meryl Streep, Musical, Prince Charming, Rapunzel, Review, Rob Marshall, Stephen Sondheim, Witch

Into the Woods

D: Rob Marshall / 125m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, Tracey Ullman, Johnny Depp, Christine Baranski, Tammy Blanchard, Lucy Punch, Mackenzie Mauzy, Billy Magnussen, Simon Russell Beale, Joanna Riding

In a fairy tale world, a baker (Corden) and his wife (Blunt) are longing for a child, while Cinderella (Kendrick) wishes she could find a way out of the endless drudgery that constitutes living with her wicked stepmother (Baranski) and her two horrible daughters, Florinda (Blanchard) and Lucinda (Punch). Nearby, Jack (Huttlestone) and his mother (Ullman) wish for their fortunes to improve, and Rapunzel (Mauzy) spends time with her prince (Magnussen) against the wishes of her “mother”. All these characters wish for better lives, and all of them find ways to achieve what they want – but not in the ways they expect.

The baker and his wife are informed by their neighbour, a witch (Streep), that she placed a curse on his family line after his father stole from her garden (including some beans). But if they can find a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold then the curse can be lifted in three nights’ time when there is a blue moon. They meet Jack who is on his way to market to sell his cow and buy it from him for a handful of beans the baker has found in his father’s coat. Meanwhile, Little Red Riding Hood (Crawford) encounters the Wolf (Depp) who takes her grandmother’s place. The baker saves her and as a reward, gives him her cape.

Jack returns home with the beans but his mother is angry with him and throws the beans on the ground. Cinderella attends the Festival at the castle of the Prince (Pine) and he becomes besotted by her. She leaves at midnight and meets the baker’s wife, but the baker’s wife doesn’t realise until too late about Cinderella’s golden shoes. The next day, a giant beanstalk has grown in Jack’s garden; he climbs it and returns with five gold coins that he uses to buy back his cow. But the baker’s wife has lost it in the woods. However, she overhears the two princes talking about the women they love and she learns about Rapunzel and her golden hair. She takes some of the hair and by chance she and her husband find the cow. That night she tries to wrest a shoe from Cinderella as she flees the castle again but fails. The next day, a giant descends the beanstalk after Jack steals a golden harp from him; Jack chops down the beanstalk and the giant falls to his death.

With just the one item to procure, the baker’s wife intercepts Cinderella on her return from the castle. She offers her a bean in return for a shoe but Cinderella declines the offer and the bean is discarded on the ground. Instead the baker’s wife offers her own shoes as trade, and Cinderella’s shoe is hers. With all four items collected, and after a couple of minor problems are solved, the witch removes the curse. The baker’s wife falls pregnant, and Cinderella and her Prince are finally united. But on the day of their marriage, their happy-ever-after future is shattered by the arrival of the giant’s wife who has travelled down the second beanstalk and means to destroy everything unless the person who killed her husband is handed over.

INTO THE WOODS

A conflation of well-known fairy tales blended together in a wraparound story that allows them to occur concurrently, Into the Woods is, superficially at least, a cleverly devised adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s original musical. With a screenplay by Lapine, and with changes and song omissions fully sanctioned by Sondheim himself, you could be forgiven for thinking that the movie is in safe hands. It has a great cast – most of whom have a proven track record with musicals – an Oscar-winning director at the helm (along with an Oscar-winning cinematographer, costume designer, and production designer), and a high recognition factor to boot. It’s well-staged, has a great deal of charm, and is often knowingly funny. But with all that, Into the Woods is a disappointing adaptation that badly loses its way once the curse is lifted and Cinderella marries her prince.

The movie’s problems are threefold. The first is that it’s curiously uninvolving, with none of the characters really making much of an impact. The witch (played with gusto by Streep) is too sympathetic to be truly threatening or frightening, while the baker and his wife appear at odds with each other on too many occasions for the viewer to be convinced they’d make good parents in the first place (at least the baker realises this about himself). Cinderella keeps running away from her prince, but without the usual stipulation of her magical transformation expiring at midnight, she loses all credibility for her actions. Little Red Riding Hood is the kind of precocious brat you hope does get eaten by the Wolf, Jack doesn’t appear to have two brain cells to rub together (‘magic” beans for a cow – even in the original story, really?), the Wolf is more creepy uncle than woodland predator, and the Prince is shallower than a puddle (though he is self-aware: as he tells the baker’s wife, “I was made to be charming, not sincere”).

The second problem is that with so much to fit in, the movie becomes more and more congested and strangely repetitive at the same time. The baker and his wife have the same argument at least twice, as does the baker and Jack, as does Jack and his mother. The same encounters happen in the woods over and over, but mostly to drive the narrative forward to the next musical interlude or the acquisition of the next object. Nothing seems to happen organically; it’s like a fairy tale greatest hits movie with songs. As a result of all this cramming, some storylines and characters are given less screen time than others, particularly Rapunzel who’s only in the movie to provide one of the minor problems mentioned when the curse is lifted (and whose hair grows back remarkably quickly after the baker’s wife cuts it off).

And lastly there’s the whole structure and content of the movie’s second half, with the notion of “happily ever after” quashed completely. After a first half that was at least intriguing to see how all the stories would intertwine, Into the Woods becomes a different movie altogether as the implications of past decisions make themselves felt, and a huge helping of regret all round is the order of the day. It’s a darker half to be sure, and it shows some characters making some uncharacteristic decisions and acting on impulses that previously weren’t part of their make up. Whatever the reason for this darker, gloomier conclusion it doesn’t work, and the songs reflect this, becoming more introspective and melancholic. And what few attempts there are to leaven the gloom with humour, fall flat on their respective faces. It’s a struggle to get through, and any viewer who does should reward themselves at the end of it.

At the helm, Marshall shows a distinctly uncertain approach to the material, his usual sure-footedness missing here and leading to scenes that don’t have the impact they should have, and songs that lose their way in the staging. It’s a movie that struggles to find its own identity, and despite the obvious talent involved, rarely hits the mark. Of the cast, Streep and Crawford come off best, though Ullman runs them a close third (and seems to understand the requirements of the material better than most). Pine is miscast, while Corden seems to be taking part in another movie altogether, and Kendrick looks embarrassed throughout. Depp plays the Wolf like a character from a Tex Avery cartoon, Blunt is earnest and bland, and Huttlestone dashes about to little effect. It’s a cast that’s pulling in different directions and rarely meeting in the middle.

The look of the movie is heavily stylised, which leads to the forest scenes becoming an awkward mix of location photography and interiors, and the Prince’s castle looking like two thirds of it has been created (and with a cursory attention to detail) in a computer. And there’s an incredibly strange moment when Little Red Riding Hood, having been eaten by the Wolf, finds herself in his stomach, a stomach that is represented as a room overrun by drapes (even on the floor). Why? Who knows. But it sums up the movie completely: unfocused and with too many questions left unanswered.

Rating: 4/10 – a movie that proves that pedigree is no guarantee of excellence – or even mediocrity at times – Into the Woods is a mish-mash of familiar fairy tales and post-modern deconstruction that never gels; sporadically entertaining, marginally successful, it’s a movie that’s difficult to take seriously, especially when the characters end up being menaced by Miss Jones from Rising Damp.

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