The translation from stage to screen has always been a delicate one. But director Rob Marshall has hit gold before (with “Chicago,” for example). And “Into the Woods” is an enjoyable movie-musical experience for the most part. However, Marshall’s latest does not join the ranks of brilliant play-to-movie adaptations.

The writers’ and director’s strict adherence to the original source material seems less reverent, more like an act of religious fanaticism. The script, penned by stage director James Lapine, unsurprisingly suffers in its translation to the silver screen. It opens with the forgettable voice of an uncredited narrator who never speaks again.

Second, while a stage audience doesn’t expect much environmental exposition, a movie audience expects a little understanding of the world where the story is taking place. Instead, we are thrust directly into the opening number, “Into the Woods.” We learn the plight of several Brothers Grimm characters who resolve that the only way to solve their dilemma is to go into the woods. The film also lacks a traditional orchestral score, which can convey a lot of emotion. Instead we get stage music that just doesn’t match up with the elaborate production design and costumes.

The story has a handful of clear antagonists from the start – the Wolf (a mustachioed Johnny Depp in a zoot suit) and the Witch (Meryl Streep). While threatening to the characters, these villains create very little fear and tension in the audience. Streep gives her usual winning performance, but the script she’s working with is clearly written for the intimacy of the stage. The Witch’s dramatic door-blowing entrance into the home of hapless baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) holds cinematic promise but dies like a bad joke when the Baker interrupts with the anticlimactic one-liner “We don’t have any more bread!”

The Witch informs the Baker and his wife of a curse she placed on the Baker’s father, which renders his family tree infertile. She demands that the couple find a few magic items in three days’ time to lift the spell. We follow the Baker and his wife as their quest intertwines with the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (of Beanstalk lore), and Rapunzel.

We identify with the Baker and his wife immediately because their quest is the one that seems most clear to the audience. All other pursuits are unrelatable and thrust into our face without any back story or exposition to speak of. Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) seems intent on attending the Prince’s festival, even though we are given no real reason behind this. Little Red Riding Hood needs to bring bread for her sick “Granny,” and yet she seems to feel no pang of conscience when she stuffs herself with the Baker’s sweets. Jack and his mother are probably the best of the bunch; at least their motives are clear and well-explained.

The play recognizes these protagonists as emotionally implausible storybook characters with cartoonish, unrealistic feelings, and the movie attempts to re-create this on screen – but with live actors, in a 124-minute movie, it’s disturbing. Viewers are left to wander through a real “forest” of ambiguous characters with strange idiosyncratic motives, dramatic story arcs, and unnecessary plot manipulation.

The Witch seems to appear at random throughout the Baker’s journey, urging him onward, yet her real motives remain a mystery. She is attempting to be a good, protective parent to Rapunzel, yet, after a “Mommy Knows Best”-esque musical number (in which the daughter seems to agree), the Witch decides to banish her to an island in the middle of the swamp.

The timely reinforcement of the musical number “Almost Midnight” dredges the film from its cesspool of thematic incoherence, redeeming it as something of a glitzy light show. But after that, the film continues to sink lower: familial deaths are met with disturbing indifference, and once-relatable protagonists are turned into fickle and unpleasant plot devices. This seems like an understandable philosophical metaphor on stage but leaves us bewildered on screen.

The stage musical is a powerful allegory about fantasy and finding true happiness, but these same themes are discreetly polished away by Marshall’s flashy direction and Lapine’s tonally awkward screenplay.