I remember as a Sophomore in High School being taken to New York City for a field trip. It was my first time in the Big Apple and I had begun to get into theatre at that time. One of the posters that I saw while on Broadway was the iconic Wicked poster. Having been a fan of the 1939 The Wizard of Oz film since a child, I was instantly drawn to it. Since then, I have never been rich enough or had enough time to go see the play.

When the first trailer dropped for the Wicked movie, I was totally onboard! The one thing that I should bring up first for those who don’t read a lot of entertainment news is that this film is part one of the Wicked tale. The second part of Wicked is set to be released in about a year. My thoughts as to why they didn’t include Part One in the promotional title is likely because films with Part One in the title rarely do well. Take for example, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1 which flopped at the box office while Dune didn’t have Part One attached to their name and did extremely well. 

The cast of Wicked is headed by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Galinda. The chemistry between these two is absolutely wonderful and dominates the screen! Cynthia’s Elphaba serves as our guide into this version of Oz as we follow her story throughout her time at Shiz University with a few scenes involving her birth and childhood. Elphaba is endowed with magical powers, but she has no control of them which is something she is striving for throughout the film.

Ariana’s Galinda on the other hand proves to be an early antagonist in the film who is desperately trying to get magic lessons as it is the one thing in life that isn’t going her way. After these two spend time together, they eventually begin to bond and it is the blossoming of that connection that carries the film to the inevitable conclusion.

The music in this is phenomenal! The vocal range of every singer is exactly where they should be for the roles that they have and they all deliver amazing performances. The audio design for the film is great as there were never any moments where the sounds were blown out. The visuals of the film also nicely complement the sounds and music as we are treated to a version of Oz that we have never seen before. I was worried at first due to the heavy use of CGI in the opening that some things were going to look off, but so much of the sets were practical that the occasional use of CGI characters never truly felt off-putting.

It would’ve been interesting to see some of the animal characters be humans in costume, but that probably would be too much of an homage to the original film. Speaking of homages, this film is filled with callbacks to The Wizard of Oz book and movie as well as the original Broadway run of Wicked. One of the first things I noticed was that some of the books the students were using appeared to be copies of The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. There are quite a few others that I noticed, but I will keep them under wraps since they may be deemed spoilers.

Overall, Wicked is a terrific film that serves as a blueprint for future musical film adaptations. For the most part, this film serves as a fine standalone, but I appreciate that this is just part one because some loose ends need to be tied up. I also appreciate that they split the musical in two because it would’ve been a disservice to the overall story for it to be crammed into two and a half hours.

Even with that gargantuan runtime, it doesn’t feel as long as it is which is a good thing. I look forward to the day when we can see part two of Wicked and experience the full vision of Director Jon M. Chu. Thank you all so much for reading this review! If you are planning to have the Glicked Experience, consider checking out my review of Gladiator II right here.

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Wicked

0.00

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Brilliant Chemistry
• Amazing Vocals & Choreography
• Wonderful Sets

Cons

• Some Questionable CGI