First Hit: Outside a few funny bits, I was mostly bored.
I know better than to go to musicals. They are a genre of films I find, for the most part, distasteful.
There have been a few where the music is more clearly a part of the film and its dialogue works. Here many of the lyrics seem to be developed just to create amusement all while the singer is singing the song seriously.
I kept hoping for the film to end and it just wouldn’t. Crisping it up to 90 minutes might have helped but the major issue I saw was that the filmmakers tried to take three fairy tales, create an additional fourth and then encompass the first three into an interesting story. It didn't work for me.
Anna Kendrick (as Cinderella) and Meryl Streep (as the Witch) can clearly sing. The songs failed them. Emily Blunt as the Baker’s wife can also sing well. James Corden as the Baker was expressive. I found that the singing of Lilla Crawford (Little Red Riding Hood) and Daniel Huttlestone (as Jack in the Beanstock fame) to be too much. There was simply too much singing from them. It caused me to dislike their characters. Johnny Depp (as the Big Bad Wolf) was wasteful and uninspired. And although Chris Pine was pretty much tongue-in-cheek the entire time, he was amusing. James Lapine wrote the screenplay and it failed in most all aspects. Rob Marshall directed this in a darkened unclear way.
Overall: This was truly a forgetful film.