Movie of the Week: Wicked (2024)

Finding the chance to see Wicked (the long-running musical, not the movie) has evaded me for quite a while now. It's the same problem I have with seeing Chicago or Book of Mormon or any of the other long-running shows in New York or elsewhere - I will just never choose that over something only running for a brief amount of time. I figure I'll get to them when I get to them (or when Ariana Madix returns to Chicago), and if I'm in New York, I'm catching something I can only catch on that trip - which means I never get to them. The only show of that ilk that I have seen is The Lion King, and that's only because someone else bought tickets.

So despite considering myself one of the world's biggest Wizard of Oz fans, I've never seen Wicked, never read the book, and yes, it took me almost two months to see the movie. I just felt kind of blah about the whole thing. There's not a theatre major alive who doesn't know all of the songs, and I felt like I was able to piece the rest of it (plot, arcs, etc.) together in my head, so I wasn't rushing to see it.

Now, after seeing Wicked: Part I, I can say - I pretty much got it all right in my imagination!

But, as has been pointed out by many, the runtime of this film, only one half of the story that director Jon M. Chu is trying to tell, runs 162 minutes - the length of the entire Broadway musical.

As a result, everything in this movie just takes forever. It honestly feels like everything is playing out at half-speed. To fill it out, they've taken inspiration from a number of source materials, most notably, of course, the novel by Gregory Maguire. Although I grew up in the age of Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games stories getting cut in half for box-office purposes (and I should probably be used to it by now), it bothers me every time that it's a detriment to the story being told. Though I'm not familiar with the stage show, this one seems like solely a cash grab. You can actually feel the point in most scenes when it should wrap up.

That was, unfortunately, only the most detrimental decision in a series of ideas that rate from "whatever" to "puzzling at best."

The film's casting is probably the decision that makes the most sense on paper - sorry, Taylor Louderman. Cynthia Erivo sure can sing and she does it all here, but I think we're discovering that her acting is increasingly one-note. Ariana Grande has also proven to have a really full voice and range, but for her, it's her singing that all sounds similar, and again, one-note. Jonathan Bailey has also proven to be a talented singer, but his "Dancing Through Life" is, say it with me, one-note.

Why did that happen to all three of them?

After that, the movie becomes increasingly puzzling. If they built all of those sets, then why does the movie look like shit? (Chu's explanation about the use of Technicolor in the MGM film blah blah doesn't excuse the fact that it looks like shit.) Why does Bowen Yang exist solely to pull us out of every scene? (Actually, we know the answer to that one.) And why, oh why, does the film start with the line, "Let me tell you the whole story,” even though it tells exactly half of the story?

I can't say I'm already seated for Part II (which is apparently called Wicked: For Good, which is...just never mind), but I'm going to do my research in the meantime so I feel more educated and more prepared for the second half. I'm planning on reading the book soon and the North American Tour is coming to Baltimore in December - just in time for me to see Part II late again. Maybe I'll turn around on this one, who knows.