The Wicked movie is finally here, and it totally lives up to the hype. I was not really interested in watching this film but it won me over which was a surprise. The movie was directed by John M. Chu who also produced the movie Crazy Rich Asians. This adaptation of the Broadway musical (which itself is an adaptation of the novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire) brings the story of Elphaba the “Wicked Witch” of Oz and Glinda the “Good Witch” to life in a whole new way and it really helps us connect with the characters on a personal level.
Cynthia Erivo has massive amounts of talent which she displays in her powerful voice and emotional depth as Elphaba.
I’m glad that it wasn’t just the misunderstood villain trope again. I thought Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba did a great job in the role despite in my opinion, the trope being kind of overplayed especially by Disney. In spite of the overplayed trope, there was actually a lot more than just her being misunderstood there’s this whole subplot of the animals’ rights movement that really glued me into the film.
The most surprising part about this film was despite the common knowledge that Ariana Grande can sing like no other, I definitely forgot how absolutely hilarious this girl is. Without a doubt, the Galinda character is going to be the funniest thing about Wicked. Every other line or scene involving Ariana Grande had me dying.
If I’m being honest, one thing I didn’t enjoy about this film is a lot of the musical numbers. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy a musical like Grease or High School Musical when the songs are catchy and maybe it’s a Broadway thing but a lot of these songs I can never see myself wiggling my finger and jamming to in my car. I like the songs “Popular” and “Are You Happy Now” at the end but those were really the only ones.
I greatly appreciate the practical effects and sets they built for this movie that look impressive, though a lot of it is given a layer of CGI and this gloss that just makes it look more fake and takes away from the practical work they did on this movie. My last negative is more going to depend on how the story for the second movie comes out because this film was rather long and it felt like it was dragging its feet for a lot of the film. Was this a movie that really needed to be broken up into two parts or could they have actually just told the whole story into this one film? Even the Broadway production got through the whole story in 2 hours and 45 minutes, so why does the movie match that time and need a sequel?
If you’re at all interested in watching Wicked I completely recommend it, again coming from somebody who was not really that interested in watching it in the first place but ended up enjoying it.
