"Into the Woods," based on
the Sondheim musical about fairy-tale characters discovering the down
side of happily ever after, was high on my list of anticipated films for
ages. All the right people seemed to be involved: Rob Marshall of
"Chicago" fame was directing, James Lapine and Steven Sondheim from the
original musical were on script and music, and it had a cast full of
people who could actually sing. Sure, there were early reports that the
story had been toned down to make it more family-friendly, but there
were enough reassurances from the key people involved that I wasn't too
worried.
And for the first half of the film,
everything was going right. Good performances, good adjustments made
to the music and the plotting, and the fairy-tale visuals were
thankfully restrained. After the overdesigned "Maleficent" and "Oz the
Great and Powerful," it was nice to see the CGI effects take a back seat
to the characters. Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife, Anna Kendrick as
Cinderella, and Meryl Streep's Witch were my favorites, but everyone
fit. The younger actors, Lila Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone, were
especially impressive delivering Sondheim's rapid-fire lyrics. And it
was a relief to find that the darker, more adult moments were largely
preserved, if deemphasized. Things felt slightly rushed, but only
slightly.
The trouble came when the film moved
into the darker second half of the story, which is where Disney lost its
nerve. Suddenly there were major musical numbers being cut left and
right, story points were horribly muddled, and the feeling of being
rushed got much worse. There was a lot of pre-release chatter about one
of the major deaths in this act being removed, but at least it had been
replaced with an ambiguous fate for the character which arguably worked
just as well. Many of the darker endings for other characters that
were kept were severely hampered by events happening offscreen, being
toned down, or shortened. Terrible events occur, but the impact
was often blunted to the point where they felt inconsequential.
All
these changes resulted in an extremely rocky second half that was
difficult to follow and thematically confusing. The actors carried on
valiantly, which mitigated some of the damage, but they could only do so
much. I still think "Into the Woods" is worth watching for the
excellent first half, but it's such a shame they couldn't follow
through.
Much less frustrating is the new
Disney animated film "Big Hero 6," based on an obscure Marvel comic book
about an Asian-themed superhero team. It has an unusually
well-conceived main character, Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter), a kid genius
who lacks direction and has a penchant for getting into trouble.
Fortunately his older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henny) intervenes, and
gets him excited about attending a "nerd school" full of inventors and
researchers. But Hiro loses Tadashi after a terrible tragedy, and is
left with only his brother's final creation, a healthcare robot
named Baymax (Scott Adsit), to help him cope.
This
is unusually emotionally fraught territory for Disney, and it gives the
typical boy-and-his-robot story some real heft to it. The creators do
an excellent job of portraying Hiro's grief and adolescent moodiness,
not avoiding the darker parts of his psyche. And Baymax is easily the
most original and memorable cinema robot in ages. A big, huggable,
inflatable, marshmallow of a bot who looks like he stepped out of a
Miyazaki picture, he is a physical comedy goldmine. Easily the best
parts of the movie are the scenes of the two of them becoming friends,
learning about each other, Hiro upgrading Baymax, and Baymax helping
Hiro to heal from his loss.
Unfortunately "Big
Hero 6" is also obliged to be a superhero team movie, and that's where
the story gets off track a little. The other four heroes are students
at Hiro's school, all nicely individuated and well designed. I liked
them all fine, but they're so painfully extraneous to the story. I was
torn between wanted to know more about them and wishing they were kept
in the background, so the film could keep its focus on Hiro and Baymax.
The movie tries to do too much, trying to juggle all these
characters, origin and revenge plots, lots of spiffy gadgetry, and a
mystery villain too. All the pieces work, but it's hard to ignore how
cluttered the narrative feels at time, and how quick it all seems to go
by.
I so admire the ambition driving this one,
though. I love that it takes place in a gorgeous futuristic Tokyo and
San Francisco mash-up called San Fransokyo. There are images that only
appear for a few seconds on screen I could spend hours looking at to
admire all the little details and in-jokes. I wouldn't mind a sequel or
two, simply to take advantage of the vast amounts of promising material
crammed in here. That could be intentional - many recent animated
films are starting to feel like television pilots.
If that's the case here, I'm sold on a "Big Hero 6" series.
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