Into the Woods - Not as bad as I expected

As a long time fan of the stage show I was very cautious about watching the movie version. In fact, to a degree, I was pleasantly surprised. Compared with the movie versions of Les Miserables, Phantom and other stage musicals, it wasn't all that bad.

An understandable disappointment was the omission of the narrator (and all the fun associated with this)- but the virtual non appearance of the Baker's father must have been very confusing for anyone not familiar with the show.

• Everest is Beautiful and Heartbreaking
• Max Dien - Superficial action movie that lacks depth

Into the Woods

Casting, with the exception of Anna Kendrick was good. Miss Kendrick is not a bad actress, but she is an awful singer, whereas the lovely Emily Blunt as the Baker's wife was a delight, both to the eyes and the ears.

The inclusion of Johnny Depp, dressed in a very unwolflike outfit was fortunately short and his delivery focused more on the salacious side of the character and missed entirely the humour of the original.

The Wolf has always been a rather contentious character, made more obvious by the fact that Red Riding Hood was played by a young person, whereas, in the stage versions I've seen an adult was cast in the role. 

Daniel Huttlestone was great as Jack - he sings and performs to perfection - the rest of the cast were adequate into which category surprisingly James Corden unfortunately falls.

Meryl Streep (an actress I usually do not like) was excellent - maybe not as amusing and camp as Bernadette Peter's witch was - but she looked and sounded really good and was (to me) one of the surprises of the movie.

Why I rated it overall fairly low is due to the fact that although the film adheres to most of the original, it somehow missed out on the humour in the stage show. Essentially a dark story, the original was lifted by the frequent laughs. Most of the lines that brought these laughs were either missing, or poorly delivered.

And why was it overall so dark? Here I refer to the lack of colour in the scenery and clothing...dark story yes,but it has an uplifting message, so why not a bit of brightness here and there. It would have added dramatically to the overall effect.

Everest is Beautiful and Heartbreaking

This movie definitely lived up to the trailers and gave us one heck of an intense and heart-wrenching film.

I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did even though the trailers looked great. It's easy to mess up with this kind of movie and give us something boring and way too bogged down in trivial details. Not this movie though.

The character interactions are great and the climbing scenes are realistic but suspenseful. The excellent cast combined with great directing by Baltasar Kormakur make this film a bit of a nice surprise for me. I honestly didn't even realize that this was based off of a true story going into it. That just makes it even more heartbreaking. Let's talk about the story a little bit.

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• Diablo - Needs some pointers from his father

Everest

Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) is an experienced climber that runs a business getting people up to the top of Mount Everest. Obviously this is no easy feat so it takes many weeks of hard work and training to prepare everyone's bodies for the climb up there.

Hall leaves his wife Jan (Keira Knightley) to help the newest group of not quite amateurs but not exactly professional climbers to tackle Everest. Everything seems to be going well at first but a series of seemingly unrelated events snowball into a tragedy as Hall's group as well as another are stuck on Everest during a particularly brutal snowstorm. This causes many other people to try and rescue whoever they can from the group. Unfortunately, not everyone's making it home from this one.

I'm a little surprised that a movie like this was able to accumulate such an amazing cast of talent. Jason Clarke is great as the compassionate Rob Hall. This guy is fairly new to me but I'm liking what I'm seeing from him.

Hall truly cares about helping his people and he wants to protect them as much as he can. He has seen first hand what the brutal conditions of the mountain can do to people and he obviously wants to help them avoid that.

I was happy to see John Hawkes play the likable Doug Hansen, a man that is obviously out of his depth but you can't help but root for him. I haven't seen this guy much after Deadwood but he always shines in whatever I see him in. Josh Brolin plays Beck Weathers and I have to say that I'm always a fan of this guy.

He's likable, but not too likable. He's obviously flawed but he's another character that you can't help but cheer for. There are so many other actors and actresses that make this film what it is but I don't have room to talk about all of them. Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, Jake Gyllenhaal, and many more mean this movie isn't exactly lacking in the talent department.

This movie is straight up gorgeous to look at. There are many great sweeping shots of the mountain and the surrounding areas that really make you realize just how large this entire mountain range is. Everything is just shot really well and I felt like I wanted to get up and go there.

I don't know how much of the film is cgi but I know that a lot of this had to be filmed on actual real locations and I love them for it. I want to visit but then I remember that I've never climbed a mountain in my life and Everest probably isn't the best one to get my feet wet.

There's not really much more to say here. The movie is fantastic. The visuals are great, the acting is top notch, and the story is interesting and leaves you wondering what's going to happen next.

I was a bit depressed by the end though because of the large number of people that died. The majority of the people that I was cheering for didn't make it. That right there tells you it's based off of a true story.

I have to admit that I choked up a bit at the end. Anyway, the movie is great and go watch it in the theater, IMAX if you have one around you. This is the kind of movie IMAX was made for.