TMS Movie Review: Wicked Part 1
(Universal Pictures)
So, there are a couple of reasons it took me nearly a month to finally see and review the first half of Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked. First is that Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939) is one of my all-time favorite movies and what I consider a perfect movie musical. Second is that when I was in high school in the mid/late 2000s, the musical theatre department on my campus were all over ‘Wicked,’ ‘Rent’ and ‘Hairspray,’ and always singing the songs from those musicals in the halls and the cafeteria; which is what I still think of whenever any of these shows are referenced. While Wicked Part 1 didn’t bother me as much as Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast (2017)—a remake of another one of my favorite movie musicals—it just confirmed that the Wicked sphere isn’t really my thing. That said, I can still be objective as a film reviewer, and think Chu has directed one of the better non-MGM screen iterations of Oz. It’s not nightmare fuel like Walter Murch’s Return to Oz (1985), but not complete schlock like Sam Raimi’s Oz, the Great and Powerful (2013) either. Chu knows how to cinematically stage and shoot a musical no matter what the story is.
Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth made Broadway history portraying Elphaba Thropp [The Wicked Witch of the West] and Galinda Upland [The Good Witch of the North] on stage back in 2003, and two whole decades later Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande pick up the torch as the characters for the big screen. Like before, Erivo’s Elphaba and Grande’s Galinda are complete opposites who are fated to be roommates at Shiz University where they are studying magic to become witches. Elphaba is an outcast because of her green skin and uncontrollable ability to levitate things when she’s emotional. Galinda is extroverted and sociable because of her fashion sense and good looks, as well as ambition. Things heat up when Elphaba is personally chosen to visit Emerald City to be introduced to The Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) at the same time the two future witches are pining for the new guy on campus, Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey).
(Universal Pictures)
Michelle Yeoh co-stars as Shiz headmistress Madame Morrible; Peter Dinklage voices Elphaba’s favorite professor, a talking goat named Dr. Dillamond; Marissa Bode plays Elphaba’s handicapped sister and schoolmate Nessa-Rose; and Ethan Slater appears as a classmate, Boq, who has a crush on Galinda/Glinda. Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox pen the screenplay after Holzman wrote the stage production based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel also called Wicked, which in return was naturally inspired by L. Frank Baum’s classic Oz fantasy books (1900-1920). Schwartz’s songs from the musical return for the film, including ‘The Wizard and I,’ ‘Dancing Through Life,’ ‘Popular,’ and of course, ‘Defying Gravity.’ A rare criticism of Broadway ‘Wicked’ is that the theatre version speed-runs through the plot to get to the next musical number, so it’s no surprise Chu and Holzman took their time expanding the dialogue and narrative for cinema. What was surprising is the story being split into two whole movies, each with a runtime over two hours. Impressively, I don’t think the first half has much filler, as they seem to give various characters arcs and storylines outside of Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda for a rather smooth and easy pace to the end [or ‘intermission’].
Subjectively, it’s hard for me, a longtime Wizard of Oz ’39 fan, to hear Broadway sounding songs in a universe I generally associate with an old timey Hollywood soundtrack and feel that’s part of the charm of when Oz is portrayed musically. [For the record, I’m not a huge fan of Sidney Lumet’s The Wiz (1978) either.] But as the years have proven, Wicked has a full blown, dedicated fanbase and they’re a big reason the new film is doing so well at the box-office. Technically speaking, the color grading and cinematography didn’t bother me as much as it seems to with a lot of film fans; although I had some issues with the lighting, such as some numbers being too dim or featuring excessive lens flare. Erivo and Grande do well in their parts, and Bailey puts on a fun, bad boy Disney prince type performance. But Goldblum feels miscast both from leaning into his own schtick and also me associating The Wizard specifically as Frank Morgan. I will say though, even as someone who isn’t obsessed with the Wicked soundtrack, Part 1 ends on a completely epic, grand note with ‘Defying Gravity,’ that you have to wonder what’s left to focus on in Part 2. Will Dorothy Gale actually be a character this time around? Will the poor actress cast as the young heroine be able to handle comparisons to Judy Garland’s perfection? Guess we’ll have to wait and see next November.