Best Song
Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen's "Agony"-- And not because of their singing. ;)
Worst Song
Lilla Crawford's "I Know Things Now" -- It's a song filled with sexual innuendos, and it's not the only one in this musical!
Favorite Character
All of them.
Least Favorite Character
All of them.
Every character in Rob Marshall's big-screen adaptation of Into the Woods does something that you like and something that you don't. One moment their motives and their actions make sense, and you want them to get their happily ever after. The next, they say or do something so selfish or contradictory that you just want to slap them. Every. Single. Character. Except, perhaps, Cinderella's wicked step-family. They stick to their traditional rottenness.
Luckily, most of the enchanted folks of this musical make up for their bi-polar disorder with their singing. While it's difficult to distinguish one song from the next in the never-ending barrage of sung dialogue, most of the performers themselves have beautifully distinct voices that intertwine with the other cast members' seamlessly. James Corden and Emily Blunt's Baker and Wife have several nice duets throughout the film, but what's even more spectacular is Corden's quartet that he does with three of the younger cast members towards the end of the film. And of course, Meryl Streep's Witch mixes well (in a wicked way) with all of the royals and peasants. It's sad that the same could not be said of the Wolf played by Johnny Depp. After seeing him get his bad on in Sweeny Todd, I looked forward to hearing that angry voice again in more than one pedophilic song.
As a huge fan of both Disney-fied and classic fairy tales, there were a lot of things I was looking forward to in this musical adaption. Sadly, the songs were the only good things that freshened up these old tales, and as I mentioned before, all the songs blended together. It was an interesting touch to have all the stories combined into one, but others have combined these classics in much more unique ways. While I wouldn't tell you to completely skip this movie, I might suggest doing a matinee or even just Redboxing it.
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