This review may be a little bit different than other reviews that youve seen. Just warning you.Okay, Into the Woods is a 1987 three-hour-long musical masterpiece by Stephen Sondeim and James Lapine that was built around a myriad of deep questions, some of the side ones being Is being nice the same as being good?, Should you follow your impulse or think things through?, and Are you ever actually alone?, among others, and the main ones being Is happily ever after ever REALLY happily ever after?, Careful what you wish for, and Is Meryl Streep a human, because shes actually perfect. All of these questions are presented to you through the intertwining stories of the classic Grimm fairytales brought together by a Baker and his wife who need something from each of them in order to appease the witch who will then lift a curse and let he and his wife finally have a child.

Now let me give a little background about myself. I have been in this show before, back when I was a freshman in high school (I was Cinderellas Father, whos role was cut from the movie), and Im an avid musical theater fan. I know the music and the morals of this show inside and out, and I will never say that this show is anything less than brilliant.So when I found out that Disney was producing this movie, I got kinda nervous. When I found out that Little Red Riding Hood and Jack were being played by actual children instead of older adolescents, I got much more nervous. When I found out that Stephen Sondheim had agreed to replot some parts of the musical, I started saying to myself Hey, it still cant be as bad as Les Mis was, right? And when I found out that they cut this three-hour long stage show down to a measly two hours and five minutes I actually reconsidered seeing the movie in theaters.

But then a week before the movie came out, I saw that the soundtrack was on spotify and pressed play on the prologue and it was good. Really good. Astounding, in fact. The voices fit the characters, they were all on key, Meryl Streep could rap, the orchestrations were brilliant, and besides Jack Jack Jack, head in a sack, EVERYTHING from the original production was in there!! It was then and there that I decided I was seeing this movie.

And I did!

Verdict: my God this movie worked so well. I love seeing a cast that is at such a high caliber being so team-like in their dedication to a piece. Everyone played their part the best they could, and if there is anything to gripe about in this movie, neither the acting nor the singing is one of those things. The costumes and makeup were perfect, the lighting was appropriate for the style of the piece, and the directing, both musical and dramatic, was painstakingly thought-out and brilliant. The only real replotting that Sondheim is guilty of was re-doing Rapunzels fate, which I can excuse since the witch still has legitimate reason perform her lament and I mean its just Rapunzel, come on, what do we actually care what happens to her?While its true that Little Red was played by a younger actress than usual, Lilla Crawford made it work beautifully by keeping Little Reds sass and courage and maturity intact. Then Jack was made younger as well (I guess if you do one, you have to do the other). Honestly, I didnt feel a reduction of strength in his character just because he was younger either. Disney just casts REALLY strong child actors. I would even make the argument that their ages in the film worked BETTER than on stage because you got a stronger sense that these were the children that were quietly listening and learning from everything around them throughout the film while the witch went from her philosophy of Children should listen to Children wont listen to Children will listen. Now, the two hour and five minute running time turned out to be not nearly as much of a travesty as I thought it would be, but it was still kind of a travesty. Most of what was cut were the stupid One Midnight Gone and Two Midnights Gone Interludes in the first act, which only make for a good break in the story if you know theres an intermission coming up. Then the songs that ended the first act and started the second act were cut because there was no intermission to lead into or come back from, so even that is understandable. But my only two major complaints with this film were with two numbers in particular. The Agony Reprise and No More. Yes, that song between the two princes that was absolutely hilarious and everyone clapped for and your single aunt said was the best part of the movie theres a whole other one of those, except the second time it perfectly sets in motion the princes lustful second act and ITS EVEN FUNNIER. God I missed that.And what about No More. This one made me mad. This song is placed at the clear turning point for the Baker in this movie, when he catches himself slipping into the same mindset that his father did when deciding to desert his own child. This is the song where he decides that he is different, that he is better, and has this (in the movie, imaginary) conversation with his father about the mistakes theyve both made in their lives. I mean, listen to the brilliance of these lines! Running away, well do it, why sit around resigned? Trouble is, son, the farther you run, the more you feel undefined. Now if so many moments in the movie that are so much less important than this major turning point deserve these full length songs, then why dont we get one here?? The most frustrating part is that I could hear the song playing underneath this shortened spoken conversation he and his dad were having. The orchestra was literally playing a shortened instrumental of the song!! But the real kicker with both these songs is that the only reason I can think of for them to cut these songs is to maintain that precious 2 hours and 5 minutes instead of (god-forbid) two hours and fifteen. They both would have given some much-needed weight to the second act to balance out the first act, for sure. So shame on whoever made the call to cut those songs, and I hope you burn in the fires of GeHenna.

Back to the good of the movie, though. When I said that this movie worked really well, what I meant is that it did its job perfectly. That meaning, it provided a perfect landscape for people to think about the story and purely the story if they so choose. The pacing of the movie may have been choppy at times, the energy may have changed and dropped off a bit after the happily ever after, the set may have seemed enclosed and stage-y at times, but all of that is just Sondheims style. He brings you into this hyper reality of fairy tales but then makes them real. He gives you a stage-like set meant to make you all comfortable and happy inside and then darkens it and makes you say hey, actually I dont know how much I like it in here. He gives you the fairytale ending and then explains in vivid detail why it is not a fairytale ending. Thats why I give major kudos to Disney for producing this movie. This is Disneys ode to all the helicopter parents out there who spend all day hovering around their kids and never give them the space to learn about the real world. If the fairytales that you surrounded your kid with to keep them sheltered have to grow up eventually, then so does your kid. I used to hate Disney because they seemingly encouraged helicopter parenting, but this movie turned overprotective parents into witches and warned that their last midnight was coming at them fast if they didnt rethink their parenting strategies a bit.

This movie has had some of the most mixed reviews Ive ever seen, and it makes me so happy because Im sure thats exactly what Sondheim wants. The controversy about the second act is just as prevalent here as it was in the original stage version. He wants to let peoples thoughts on this movie be based on what they were able to reflect on within themselves because of the story they just witnessed, and from the fact that the New York Times gave this movie 5 stars while my favorite movie reviewer, one of the most popular on YouTube, rated this movie a good time only if youre drunk, its pretty evident that the makers of this film accomplished the telling of this story superbly, and a movie that does a great job of telling a great story is a great movie my book.