Directed By Jon M. Chu

Starring – Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey

The Plot – The untold story of the witches of Oz, stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, a young woman, misunderstood because of her unusual green skin, who has yet to discover her true power, and Ariana Grande as Glinda, a popular young woman, gilded by privilege and ambition, who has yet to discover her true heart. The two meet as students at Shiz University in the fantastical Land of Oz and forge an unlikely but profound friendship. Following an encounter with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), their friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives take very different paths which will ultimately see them fulfill their destinies as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Rated PG for some scary action, thematic material and brief suggestive material.

Wicked – Official Trailer

POSITIVES

Even in a sea of Oz reimagining’s that have crowded the story’s creativity from ever feeling original or unique, ‘Wicked’ stands out above the rest by following Elphaba’s approach, and embracing the ambitious differences that have made both the novel and Broadway stage show such a rousing success among its die hard fandom. It starts with the scope and spectacle of Chu’s imaginative direction, painting the canvas not only with colorful intoxication that vividly conjures the fantastical exuberance of Oz, but also the spectacle that he commands throughout these energetically intoxicating musical numbers, which elicit the energy and pageantry in ways that are transferred breathlessly from stage to screen. Between expressively bold and personable costumes stretching as far as the eye can see among its army of extras, free-flowing movements of the lens, which stage and frame razor sharp dance choreography with immersive encapsulation, or the epic grandeur of the movie’s sound design echoing an inescapable infectiousness to the eyes and toe-tapping of its audience, this was the best case scenario for anyone who has never seen the stage play, and instead get to experience it as gloriously radiating as possible, with an overall spectrum and artistic merit that deserves the single biggest screen possible to watch play out, in order to capture all of the titanic immensity that grips you into the minds of its characters. On that front, the performances are also quite exceptional, with noteworthy supporting turns from Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum that charm and captivate with the limited time that they’re each given on screen, but also impeccable turns from Erivo and Grande, who merit such dimensions to their respective portrayals. With watery eyes aplenty, Erivo brings to the interpretation of the audience the fear, humility and ferocity of the most iconic witch to ever hit the silver screen, made all the more humbling with highly impressive vocal capacities that adorn these familiar tracks with emphasized emotional resonance that will undoubtedly bring goosebumps when she hits the highest notes of improbability, that she reaches every single time. As for Grande, it would be easy to interpret her role as Glinda as being one-dimensional, but in addition to the bubbly and breezy immaturity that elicited a consistent range of comedic timing, there’s an equally endearing earnestness that is present once her evolution starts to take shape with the growing friendship between Elphaba and Glinda, and while a role this airy and naive could easily feel grating or distracting to the storytelling in the wrong hands, Grande makes it her own with effortless naturalism that summons these confident deliveries, with an equally impressive vocal range to Erivo’s, which is a pleasure to hear during those few musical numbers where they share the stage and the microphone. As for the storytelling, it’s honestly quite flawed, but what did work was this idea of shifting this familiar story upside down, while proving that there’s always two sides to every story. Heading into the film, my biggest obstacle to clear was how they were going to make the Wicked Witch the victim, after being this horrendous adversary during ‘The Wizard of Oz’, and with so many scenes involving conflict pertaining to Elphaba’s appearance, something that I’m sure Erivo herself has faced as a black actress in a white dominated industry, those parallels and social commentary elicit themselves effectively in ways that actually works to representation in the ensemble, instead of it feeling like a gimmick in itself to raise awareness. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that sentiment, but with a movie that inspires its audience to embrace the differences of each other, not fear them, it serves a gratifying purpose that echoes the beats of the storytelling, all the while pointing out the ridiculous instances where we demean and lessen someone for something so trivial that is out of their control. Lastly, I have to give praise to the tangibility’s of the production’s set designs, as there’s far more practicality than I was initially expecting from the trailers. To be fair, there’s still an abundance of green-screen backdrops that compromised my believability whenever they appeared, but the interior settings are every bit imaginative as they are expressive, and with the interactive influence of the aforementioned musical sequences, works the settings into the choreography in ways that bred such an adaptive appreciation to how they’re executed, with my favorite easily being the library, during ‘Dancing Through Life’.

NEGATIVES

The movie adaptation of ‘Wicked’ will unfortunately remain in the shadow of its stage show predecessor, as a result of the growing pains of cinematic adapting that often go through issues that you won’t experience in a stage setting. For starters, it was unforeseen that this is the first movie of a two-part franchise, which like the play splits the story up into two halves, at the exact point the play does for intermission. This is a faithful touch, but the amount of story contained in this initial effort definitely feels stretched to make a feature length movie of its own, and I find it difficult to believe that with a two hour and forty minute run time that they couldn’t of made an acceptable script to converge the two sides into one. Speaking of that ambitious run time, you definitely feel every minute of it, with pacing schemes unable to attain a long term momentum, as a result of the constant halting that musicals typically experience with too much shifting away from the storytelling into musical sequences. For much of the movie’s first act, the advancement felt dormant, which made it difficult to further my interests towards the conflicts of the characters, but even beyond that, the primary arc of the movie that is introduced early on between Elphaba either being born evil or being a product of her environment feels superfluous to the experience of the adventure, with it dispelled quite early that she’s not evil at all, which underscored a lot of my interests towards this character’s evolution. In fact, the script focuses so little on Elphaba after the initial opening twenty minutes that she eventually comes to share focus quite often with other characters, and while that’s expected in any movie, there are so many arcs with Elphaba and other characters that are introduced quite prominently, then never followed through on, made to believe that they’ll somehow serve a purpose in the second movie, or at least that’s what I hope for the longest of long-term resolutions that a cash grab franchise can conjure. While musical audiences might hate the idea, the reality is that a lot could’ve definitely been trimmed or cut all together here, as failing to do so only amplified these pocketed moments of delayed dilemma that go nowhere fast, made worse by this single frame focus to the movie’s script, which was unable to focus simultaneously on two arcs or characters at once. Finally, while music is subjective among an audience, I found the songs in ‘Wicked’ to be very inconsistent in their appeal, primarily with lyrics lacking nuance or even rhyming during certain songs. While the exceptions are certainly there with the epic ‘Defying Gravity’, or the perky poppy ‘Popular’, which both created earworms of repetition sure to not leave my memory any time soon, other tracks like ‘Dear Old Shiz’, ‘One Short Day’, and ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’ are marred by boisterously intrusive sound mixing that obscured most of the lyrics that I was attempting to interpret, which is strange considering I saw this in an XD theater, with the best sound equipment possible for movie watching. If an overwhelming majority of the songs are great, it can make those few blunders easily forgivable, however most of the songs in ‘Wicked’ serve as extensions to the exposition of the characters, which we experienced minutes prior, and with the music numbers dominating so much of the film’s first half, before reaching more of a balanced consistency with the storytelling, during the second half, it ultimately felt more intrusive than beneficial, especially with the music itself not being my own personal kind of preference.

OVERALL
‘Wicked’ will prove to be a devilishly delightful time to fans of the stage show or novel but may find its greatest adversity in attaining a newfound audience underwhelmed by an overstuffed run time and shallow arc explorations that could’ve proven something rarely profound for the musical genre. Despite inconsistent returns, the film is benefited greatly from three-dimensional performances from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as well as fantastically imaginative production values that stun so spellbindingly that you lose yourself to the luster of the Emerald City, with a few memorable songs that elevate it into memorable territory.

My Grade: 6/10 or C+