Rapunzel and her prince didn't have too much cut they are defiantly secondary characters even in the stage version. The prince has one an agony reprise with his brother (they both find other princesses in the woods (Snow, and Sleeping Beauty) to cheat on their current princesses with, Rapunzel has twins while banished and is the first victim killed by the giantess.
I actually have no issue with the screenwriter downsizing the roles for these two characters, considering they're never fully developed and never truly emotionally resonated with the audience; my issue is their treatment is that their storyline was either dropped completely/their finales underwritten. I didn't care one bit for them because they were underwritten, and more than anything, the pacing of the film suffered because of what seemed to be unneeded attention spent on them instead of the core characters.
The stage version shows all the deaths off stage as well.
Then this is something the film should have changed. Film has the benefit of providing finality to a character (since the actor on stage will reappear at the end no matter what), and while gruesome deaths aren't necessary, showing just how bad the losses are would have gone a long way toward creating grief and mourn.
Otherwise, "oh by the way, this person's dead" doesn't resonate as strongly.
The wolf is tricky on stage Red is played by an young adult so the sexuality can be played up more without it being as creepy. Having a 10 year old play Red they were pushing what the wolf could do without making it PG-13. Which maybe it should have been.
It probably should have been. The film tries to have it both ways - playing it a bit risqué while maintaining the ever-elusive family friendly monicker - but it can't decide what side of that line it wants to play on. A fully committed PG-13 version of the show would likely have played better. It just felt....restrained, to a certain extent.
And really, does Disney really think that PG vs. PG-13 for THIS film would have made all the difference for the box office?
Target the Les Miserables/Mamma Mia (ugh)/Chicago crowd in the ad campaign. Profit. Don't hide the fact that it's a musical until a week before release.
I agree Chris Pine was awesome! I was dying watching him.
The cast was very good-to-great overall (though I'm still trying to find out why Blunt has been given some awards consideration to a role I more-or-less consider wafer-thin). Streep is great, but Pine just runs away with every scene he's a part of. "Agony" is far and away the funniest moment in the film, and he plays it beyond perfectly.
And all my complaints aside, it has to be said:
The music is fantastic. The story is exceedingly clever. The performances were great. The production should be commended, especially given a relatively modest $50 million budget for a Oscar-season tentpole. I'm fairly critical of Rob Marshall's films, but this material suited him very well.
B+
