Annie or Into the Woods? We’ll help you decide.

Sony Pictures Entertainment/Walt Disney Pictures

Lately, the movie musical has been so much better in animated (Frozen) or realistic (Pitch Perfect) form than as your classic song-and-dance. Maybe it feels too old-fashioned, or too sincere, but movies seem to have forgotten how to handle characters belting out their feelings and, perhaps, indulging in a little choreography. In the last few years, we've had Les Misérables, which featured some strong performances but jarringly had its characters sing right to the camera as if they were all existing in their own individual music videos, and Jersey Boys, a jukebox musical that managed to treat its songs like annoyances to be given as little focus as possible. Black Nativity never figured out how to toggle between its musical numbers and non-musical drama, and Rock of Ages... well, let's not talk about Rock of Ages.

This holiday season is giving us two new musicals, Will Gluck's remake of Annie and Rob Marshall's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. Neither is a home run — Annie can be rough going despite the adorableness of its lead, while Into the Woods tends toward the dull, though together the two films almost add up to one whole, more complete movie. Chances are, however, that you're not signing on for a double feature, so here's a guide to which one of these you should pick for your holiday viewing purposes.

Do you like your adaptations faithful?

Then opt for Into the Woods (obvi). While writer James Lapine, who wrote the book for the original stage version, has pruned some songs and some plot, Into the Woods keeps very close in spirit to the fairy tale mash-up that premiered on Broadway in 1987. It's got its stylized forest in which the characters all find themselves, and around it a storybook kingdom of villages and castles, filled with princes and peasants, witches and children whose paths all intertwine.

Annie plucks its story of an orphan who gets taken in by a billionaire from the Depression era and plunks it down in the present day, altering some songs and adding a few new ones, and incidentally and without ceremony having the two main characters be played by black actors (Quvenzhané Wallis and Jamie Foxx). The update works better in theory than in practice — the cozy capitalist fable aspect of the story fits better in the more abstract past, and making Daddy Warbucks, now Will Stacks, a cell phone czar capable of tracking anyone is thoroughly creepy. There are some clever touches, though — the premiere that Will and Annie attend is now of a YA movie called MoonQuake Lake, and the clips we see of it are packed with amusing cameos.

Walt Disney Studios

Are you like, Sondheim who?

See Annie. Into the Woods may have a passionate following, but the screen adaptation yields no standout or memorable songs — the best number is the prologue, in which the many characters sing about their places in life and their longings. Annie mangles some of its numbers — the reworked "Little Girls," performed by Cameron Diaz, in particular — but it's got songs that will be recognizable to non-musical theater devotees, like "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life," even if Wallis' voice isn't always up to them.

Barry Wetcher/CTMG

View Entire List ›