Popcorn Column by Michael S. Goldberger

Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures  The baker (James Corden) and his wife's (Emily Blunt) quest for a wicked witch that intersects with familiar fairy tales in the movie version of 'Into the Woods.'

Director Rob Marshall's movie adaptation of James Lapine (book) and Stephen Sondheim's (music and lyrics) "Into the Woods" is whimsical and enchanting until about the 60 percent mark, at which time it bogs down into the catastasis. That's the point in drama, as I explained to my daughter Erin when she was little, when push comes to shove and it looks like things might not work out too well. She quickly informed: "I hate the catastasis."

Well, me, too, sometimes. Here, in what is essentially a two-part saga, it disrupts more than heightens the experience.
 

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Indeed, these woods might have benefited from a few less, complicating trees. But again, it's awfully good going for a while, a joyous and witty amalgam of several fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm given the London/Broadway stage treatment and then transferred to the wonderful world of f/x-enhanced film. A stellar cast breathes new life into the familiar characters who jibe humorously with the script's updated, semi-satiric take on the time-honored fables.

Of course Streep, playing the witch who has cast a spell that adversely impacts a kindly baker (James Corden) and his sweet, resultantly barren wife (Emily Blunt), can't help but overshadow her fellow players. La Streep's star is simply too bright. But that's just fine since it only proves to aid the production and, truth be told, had me a little scared. I mean, those long fingernails and gnarly teeth. Only this lady can mine the originality in a stereotype. So, while the bounteously colorful movie is appropriately rated PG, I'd get a babysitter for little Liam.

However, if you're taking Ava and Ethan, both over 7 if I remember correctly, be sure to first tutor the moppets with a correct telling of "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Rapunzel," lest this merger misinforms them. Call it the Readers Digest version. Proposing that the six degrees of separation theory also applies to fairy tales, Lapine's screenplay sees to it that an all-star gathering of magical characters democratically interacts across storylines.

Act 1, Scene 1, the baker and his wife charitably look the other way as Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) greedily helps herself to several free samples, presumably to be enjoyed by Grandma. Naturally, her traipse into the woods will include an encounter with Mr. Wolf, a hipster played to sleazy perfection by Johnny Depp. You know the rest, more or less. But it plays second fiddle to the childless couple's plight.

It's all about a conjuring the wicked witch put on the baker's dad for filching some greens from her garden. His family tree is doomed to wither. It turns out dear old dad wasn't exactly father of the year, and this sets a whole bunch of metaphors in motion. But the bottom line is, Streep's hateful hag is willing to lift the baby ban if the couple goes into the woods and gathers the four items she needs to escape from a hex that has caused her ugliness. They are game.

Meanwhile, as the baker and his wife traipse in search of a red cape; a cow as white as snow; a slipper pure as gold; and hair yellow as corn, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), soon to be of beanstalk fame, has been entrusted by mom (Tracey Ullman) to sell a cow that happens to meet that description. The narratives begin to intertwine, with all beings concerned melodically sprinkling a play-by-play in song throughout the lush, forbidding landscape. Some of it is rather hummable.

Shortly tying into the magical doings are Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), both of whom have, in good fairy tale fashion, their own handsome prince to save and pursue them. Brothers, the royal suitors (Billy Magnussen for Rapunzel; Chris Pine for Cinderella) commiserate in duet over the difficulties of such entangled wooing. But the biggest challenge that awaits, even more fearsome than Streep's frightful sorceress, is the Giant that Jack unleashes after he buys and sows those proverbial beans. Trouble brews and bubbles.

Still, it looks like things are going to be OK, until we learn that what we thought was happily ever after is really just the end of part one. Yep, the film itself has a curse: that dreaded catastasis. A whole gamut of unresolved and new predicaments rear their foul threats. Oh, that a kindly woodman could thin things out a bit.

All the same, it's a lot of entertainment. So if you can see the forest for the trees, for $8.25 a ticket in Gulfport, Miss., or $14 in New York City, that's a bargain compared to what you'd pay to see "Into the Woods" on Broadway.

"Into the Woods," rated PG, is a Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures release directed by Rob Marshall and stars Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep and James Corden. Running time: 125 minutes

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