Considering the amount of films about to be unleashed upon us for the holidays — especially for families — I don’t think any of them could be considered as critic proof as Wicked. Based on Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical based on the Gregory Maguire novel, which itself is based on/a continuation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz series, what we’ve wound up with is a true Munchkin nesting doll of a film.
The saving grace here being Holzman credited as co-writer, alongside Dana Fox. Interestingly enough, Fox is most well known for horrible rom-coms, so I’m sure Holzman kept a pretty tight rein on things. With Jon M. Chu brought in to direct, I hoped for something more along the lines of razzle dazzle, however, his last film, In the Heights, featured far more creativity when it came to moving things from stage to screen. Although the finale — if you can even call it that considering this is Part One (as titled onscreen) — does kick things into high gear.
Unfortunately, it’s almost too little too late thanks to a film that runs way too long for being only half the story. It’s not a good sign when Part One is as long as the entire stage show. For the uninitiated, there are exactly two memorable songs and you’ve been living under a rock if you can’t guess which ones those are. There is a lot of fat that could have, and should have, been trimmed to give the film room to move along and concluded the entire story.
Instead, we just have to be extremely thankful for the casting of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda. The two are remarkable in the leads and carry the movie on their shoulders with no stumbles along the way. Unless you account for the opening song where Grande sings so unintelligibly it should have come with subtitles.
It may sound like I had absolutely no fun whatsoever, there is fun to be had. Be warned though, that with this amount of filler, some youngsters who aren’t already smitten may find themselves awfully wiggly before the credits roll. Needless to say, adults who also aren’t already fans probably won’t leave the theater fully converted either. The end is almost too little too late, if we didn’t have Erivo defying gravity and sending us out on a high note.
A subplot regarding animal rights will hopefully return in Part Two and not wind up one of film’s biggest MacGuffins, because it will definitely make the story more interesting. So long as they also have Erivo front and center enabling her to give a performance worthy of her becoming the Wicked Witch of the West.
I guess if summer blockbusters can be mindlessly entertaining popcorn spectacles, why can’t this as well, except that it is clearly trying to be more than that. It wants to be one of the best film musicals of all time, but when you only get half the story, we’ll just have to wait till next Thanksgiving to see if it can finally live up to the hype.
For further thoughts, be sure to keep an ear out for the next episode of Big Movie Mouth Off!
