By Roger Moore


FILM: Into the Woods
CAST: Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt
DIRECTION: Rob Marshall

Into the Woods, the Stephen Sondheim fairy-tale musical that sent up every contrivance and cliché that the Brothers Grimm could cook up, earns a lush, grand and star-studded production for the big screen. Disney brought out and bought the big guns — director Rob (Chicago) Marshall, Meryl (Mamma Mia!) Streep and Anna (Pitch Perfect) Kendrick.
There’s even a role for the one-time rocker turned Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp, in this no-expense-spared extravaganza.
But that bigness is only a burden when you see some of your favourite fairytale figures short-changed in the trimmed-down film, when you fret over the weaker voices and less charismatic players cast in lesser parts.
And if it’s still long enough to be wearying, blame James Lapine and Sondheim, whose original show was longer and so richly detailed that it inspired everything from Wicked to Disney’s Enchanted and Tangled.
A baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt, a vocal surprise) live under a curse of childlessness. The witch (Streep, stunning) who holds that curse over them offers an escape clause. They can go into the woods and fetch the cow from Jack and the Beanstalk, the cowl from Red Riding Hood, a slipper from Cinderella and a lock of Rapunzel’s golden hair, and she’ll call it quits on the curse.
Of course, the couple doesn’t know these talismans belong to those characters. But stumbling through the woods, they intercept dopey young Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) on the way to the market, sent by his mum (Tracey Ullman) to sell the cow. There’s Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), pining away in her tower, and sassy-brassy Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford, a hoot) on her way to granny’s.
And Cinderella (Kendrick, spot on) is making her way, night after night, into a prince’s (Chris Pine) festival ball, escaping his clutches before each midnight.
Depp’s whiskers-twirling turn as the Big Bad Wolf is a stitch.
Sondheim’s tongue-twisting, foot-notable psycho-babble lyrics challenge one and all, and none will have you humming the tune as you leave the theatre. And despite the editing, the predictable story tends to seriously drag in the second act, when lesser lights make us long for the return of the princes, Cinderella or the Witch.
But Streep, Marshall & co still manage to do the Woods justice. And if it’s more impressive than embraceable, remember your Sondheim (Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, etcetera). That’s kind of his thing. —TNS


Setting the ground
By Troy Ribeiro


FILM: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson
DIRECTION: Francis Lawrence

Based on Suzanne Collins’s third young adult novel on the futuristic dystopian society of Panem in the Hunger Games series, this film, Mockingjay-Part 1 is a sequel to the 2013 released The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
But unlike its previous editions, Mockingjay-Part 1 lacks the zing of an adventure film. During its entire run time, it just concentrates on creating a setting for the next part.
Unfortunately, this science fiction adventure film will be understood only by those who’ve read the book or have seen the previous editions of the series.
As the saga continues, the film begins with Katniss Everdeen, the winner of the previous Hunger Games, being in an unsettling transitional period of her life. Her moods swing as she battles to recover from the shock her body, mind, and spirit have undergone in the past few months. The games are over and there is a revolution in the offing. The man who devised the sadistic competition, Plutarch Heavensbee reveals a new facet to his character. His role as the Games’ evil planner was just a cover-up for his activities as a rebel agent. Now, as a rebel strategist, he is pressing Katniss to become the poster-face of the rebellion against the Capitol, governed by President Snow.
Jennifer Lawrence, who has delivered remarkable performances in her earlier films, finds it difficult to balance a fiery attitude along with frowning her brows in sadness. Her performance in this film, as the heroine Katniss, lacks energy and depth. Hutcherson as Peeta, like in the previous editions, is wasted. Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket sticks out as an odd rebel with an amusing hairstyle and headgears. But unfortunately, her character does not take her anywhere in the narration. Overall, the film is well-made but drab. It lures you to look forward to the concluding edition — Mockingjay Part 2 which is scheduled to release in November this year. - IANS

DVD courtesy: Kings Electronics, Doha

Intimate and sarcastic
By Roger Moore


FILM: Annie
CAST: Quvenzhane Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne, Cameron Diaz
DIRECTION: Will Gluck

Annie, a musical that the decades have rendered into a punchline, is modernised, made more streetwise and brought back to life in a production backed by Jay Z and various members of the Will and Jada Pinkett Smith empire.
The new Annie is intimate and hip, sarcastic and flip. It opens by mocking the clichéd redheaded cheerfulness of the Depression Era comic strip, and proceeds to give the little orphan — “Not an orphan. I’m a foster kid!” — sass to go along with a heart so big it melts all of New York.
Quvenzhane Wallis, that wonder of a child actress from Beasts of the Southern Wild, is no tap dancing Broadway baby with a voice built to reach the balcony. But director Will Gluck and the producers tailor this production to her talents, and it pays dividends.
Annie has charisma enough to turn a school report on Franklin Roosevelt into a performance piece, with her classmates keeping the beat. She charms her “Hard Knock Life” roommates at the foster home, but not the wannabe who collects cheques from the state to take care of them all. Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz, vamping it up) has never gotten over being kicked out of C & C Music Factory in the 90s. She’s a bitter woman who shrieks at the five kids she cares for.
Meanwhile, Daddy Warbucks has been transformed into Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), a cell phone magnate who sees his run for mayor as a chance to grow his business. He’s frets about having to meet people and get germs.
“Whoa whoa”, he gripes to his campaign manager Guy (Bobby Cannavale) and his assistant Grace (Rose Byrne). “I gotta feed hobos?”
Stacks is a victim of his own spit-takes at every event where he has to eat soup kitchen food. But if viral videos can drag him down in the polls, video of him scooping Annie out of danger in traffic brings him up. Guy convinces Stacks to take in the kid and get as many photos of “Little Orphan Annie” as he can. All Annie wants to do is find her real parents, visiting the restaurant where she was abandoned years before, waiting and hoping.
Gluck (Easy A) keeps the pace brisk through the early acts.
The banter is clever. We’re reminded that Sandy, the dog, shares the name with a certain storm. And the picture is peppered with cameos — Patricia Clarkson as a customer burned by Stacks’ cellphones, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis star in a movie whose premiere the rich guy and the orphan attend, and Michael J Fox endorses Stacks’ mayoral race opponent. —Tribune News Agency

DVDs courtesy:
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha