Shockingly, Wicked: Part I (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) is only the second, possibly third, most absurd unfinished movie saga of 2024. Director Jon M. Chu (In the Heights, Crazy Rich Asians) somehow managed to squeeze half of a two-and-a-half-hour Broadway musical into 160 minutes of movie – Part II will arrive in a year or so – but still falls short of Kevin Costner’s Horizon, which, if it ever gets finished, will clock in at four three-hour chapters. (The third ridiculous partial story of the year? The sandworm extravaganzaism of Dune, of course.) But maybe bloated CGI-addled adaptations of smash-hit musicals is what the people want: Wicked – based on Stephen Schwarz’s Broadway production which was based on Gregory Maguire’s novel which was based on 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz which was based on L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, gasp pant – raked in $635 million and counting at the box office, and seems to be on track for a few Oscar nods. So there’s no denying the movie is, what’s the word I’m looking for here, um, hmmm, right, POPULAR. But popularity doesn’t mean it’s a crossover success, creatively speaking – I’d wager that the same superfan types are watching this thing over and over again, because this movie is very much for some people and very much not for others.
WICKED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Ding dong, everyone in Oz is celebrating someone’s death. Pretty dark! But the Wicked Witch of the West was the villain, and with her out of the picture, the Yellow Brick Road will surely gleam brighter. The end? Of course not! As always, it’s more complicated than it seems. Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande) arrives in her floating bubble to explain why this story of good and evil isn’t so cut, dried and significantly easier on our patience for run times, so we jump to a flashback: Once upon a time, a green baby was born and shunned by her father and bullied bullied bullied growing up simply for the color of her skin. That’s Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), and This Is Her Story. But, before Glinda can go on (and on and on and on), a Munchkin asks, “Wasn’t she your friend?” Glinda tilts her head and smiles and the title card hits, at last, finally, 13 minutes into the movie.
And so it was that Glinda and Elphaba met as teenagers attending Shiz University, the school of magic in the land of Oz. There seems to be a uniform code demanding all attendees wear a specific shade of royal blue, although Glinda is apparently allowed to wear pink and Elphaba black, without repercussions. They’re already exceptions and they’re not even witches yet. Funny how that works. Must be destiny. If there’s an explanation for this, I might’ve missed it, and if I did, I’m happy to have missed it, because I’ve concluded in my oldish age that less explanations for things are often preferable to more explanations for things, and if Wicked is anything, it’s an explanation for things that we might not entirely need. But here we are, and we just have to deal with it.
I digress. The scene that might as well have a Sorting Hat in it determines popular pampered princess-type Glinda will be roomies with the outcast Elphaba. The latter’s mighty magical powers, which she has yet to learn to control, finds her under the wing of Dean Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), prompting the shallowbrained Glinda to chirp, “Something is very wrong – I didn’t get my way!” But soldier on she must through such adversity. They end up in class together, taught by a goat named Dr. Dillamond (voice of Peter Dinklage), who lectures on the prejudice and lack of civil rights that talking sentient animals in Oz must deal with, a problem that prompts Elphaba’s social activism. Meanwhile, a handsome-princely type named Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) arrives to the school so Glinda can pine for him while he secretly is interested in Elphaba; the film then spends 12 minutes celebrating the emptiness of Fiyero’s skull. The love triangle churns in the background unbeknownst to Glinda, who finally connects with Elphaba. They become tight pals, and Elphaba gets a makeover that includes a certain iconic pointy hat. Elphaba ends up being such an extraordinary student, she gets invited to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), and Glinda follow follow follow follows along so together they can experience the dark realities of this plane of existence.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Wonka, Wicked; Wicked, Wonka – whatever!
Performance Worth Watching: It’s not easy being green, and Erivo cuts through some of the noise and clutter to share the complexities and fraught inner life of her character.
Memorable Dialogue: A question that might not have an answer in reality, but probably does in the Wicked reality, where explanations rule:
A munchkin: Why does wickedness happen?
Glinda: That’s a good question – one many people find confusifying.
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Wicked is a long, comforting bath for the many fans of this type of grandiose frippery, fans who won’t notice that the water quickly gets tepid, prompting Chu to repeatedly turn the faucet on to warm the tub, apparently not caring that it overflows and soaks the floor and causes leaks downstairs and structural damage that’ll be expensive to repair. Which is to say, this brand of self-consciously arch Broadway cleverness ain’t for me. I often struggled to right the sails of my flagging interest as the film indulged its all-too-modern rampant explanationism, which prompts cranks like me to pontificate about the value of mystique. Do we NEED the origin of the flying monkeys, as if it’s just too much to accept that some monkeys in magical fictional lands are just born with wings? No, but the many corporations aiming to fill their bottomless-pit money bins feel otherwise, hence why we’ll get even more Wickedness in a year. Now is a good time to sigh at the state of things.
From an outside-the-target-audience point-of-view, Wicked is easy to admire and criticize in equal measure. For example: At least it gives us something to look at. It’s OTT bordering on ugly, but it’s something, an example of rampant CGI abuse that makes you lament the existence of the Star Wars universe for establishing the too-clean digital aesthetic (The Phantom Menace) and the high-def virtual environments that make stupid stuff like, oh, filming in actual locations that actually exist, unnecessary (The Mandalorian). It’d be unfair to say the method doesn’t allow Wicked’s army of visual artists room to dream big and put big gobs of eye candy on the screen, but it too often feels antiseptic, impersonal and too damn busy, putting layers of artifice between the cast and an audience that’s fighting to connect to the characters.
It takes half the movie to settle down for a decent, legit scene that feels like it balances drama and comedy, when Glinda’s airy delight and Elphaba’s pained sadness give the film a little thematic balance. Granted, it’s an at-its-core rote makeover scene, and it enables, god help us all, multiple sequences explaining the origin of the pointy hat, but there’s substance in its blend of heft and levity. It also segues into the unavoidable hit “Popular,” which bubbles and sparks with energy. If only the other showstopper, closing number “Defying Gravity,” was granted such respect – it ends up being chopped to bits, interrupted with hectic action bits that might feel more consequential if Chu had managed to foster any significant dramatic tension during the previous two hours.
Add the plot’s constipated straining for political relevance atop a thin story of otherism and the grandiose, elaborate and surely so so expensive production, and you’ve got a recipe for exhaustion. Need I remind you this is only half the story? There’s absolutely opportunities for joy here, if you’re tuned in and acclimated to the hectic style, and are a preexisting fan of the songs and/or Ariana Grande, who, along with Broadway vet Erivo, never waver in their commitments to their roles. But if you’re not on its wavelength? You’ll only feel worn out.
Our Call: Warning: Impending waffling: Wickedites will STREAM IT on repeat for a year and never apologize for it, and hey, good for them, find joy wherever you can, I say. The rest of us will SKIP IT and maybe wonder if there’ll someday be a version of this story that doesn’t make us feel like we’re masticating two dozen pieces of bubble gum at once.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
