12/03/2024 - Wicked review

So! I just saw Wicked, which is the first time I've watched a movie in a couple of months and it was!!!!... divided. To sum it up, it is visually stunning while being plotwise stunted... so lets talk about it.

Final rating: waiting for part 2/5 

First I wanna talk about the positives of this movie: the visuals.

Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were both fantastic, their singing, their acting, the dancing, everything, it was great. The prince was fun addition to the cast and played off the "ken" role pretty well, all of this based on a musical I'm unsurprised that the musical numbers are in fact.. good lol. The costuming was also on point, specifically I want to point to the munchkins and the city folk. Focusing on the city folk for a second - the green hues of emerald on every character was so interesting, everyone became a character and the background all at once. Even the exposition dump is fairly well done through the use of a street play. I feel that alphaba's outfit herself was both accurate to the wizard of oz, and simultaneously remake-y, which I appreciated. The set design was another highlight. I didn't know this before but there was very little CGI used in the films. The animals sure, but the city, the train, the ballroom, the classrooms, all real sets, even the poppy field in the intro was real, the whole thing. I think the value of that is really high, especially in the era of the greenscreen. The cgi for the animals was fine, serviceable. It wasn't distracting, though that may not be saying much as I have low standards for cgi. I wish I could accurately describe why this movie looked so good. all I can really say is hats off to the costuming, set design, and concepting team for doing an incredible job.

I wanna emphasize how good these aspects of the movie are, This movie was a visual smash, and I loved looking at it, if I could turn my brain off fully, this movie would get an easy 5/5, unfortunately, I cannot. Let's talk about the story.

Starting out with I wanna say there are two movies here, the musical itself, which justifies anything out of the movie to bring about good songs, and a compressed series of events to get that music and the general message of empathy vs sympathy, and the story that I would have liked to have seen. I am going to talk about the story I wanted to see, not about what the movie is in the following section, you have been warned!

The story of this movie is confused at best. While I don't wanna be too harsh on it, there are so many B plots that go nowhere this movie that it can be very distracting. A Broadway musical can get away with a somewhat rushed story, because the story isn't really always important factor, it can be a medium for music to play out. Here though, on the screen? it doesn't get such a pass. I will caution though, there is a part 2 coming apparently. Because of this, I cannot really accurately say if the B plots are truly pointless, or if they will becoming important in part 2. Regardless I think many of my complaints will stand either way.

Because of the numerous B plots, the movie becomes, in my opinion, messy and unfocused. So lets talk about the different strands. We have: Elphaba was bullied by her father for being green, The prince love triangle, Elphabas sister and her disability / love triangle, The animal holocaust thing???, Elphaba learning magic, Elphaba being popular. So letsssss go through them a little.

First off, The "a" plot is  that Elphaba has to be green because she has to experience judgement while also not being an animal so she can understand the animals plight and look selfless helping them (if she were an animal it would of course be in her interest to help), Thus then the plot goes that she goes to the magic school, learns how to harness magic, finally realizes acceptance after becoming popular, realizes the animal holocaust is happening, goes to the wizard, realizes HE is evil, and becomes "wicked". Wow, ok, lots happening!

See, there's some issues, we set up that Elphaba is, in fact, discriminated against early in the movie. This is established so that she is empathetic to the animal cause, but then we spend damn near half the movie reinforcing this point instead of focusing on what is supposedly the driving force OF wicked: the animals! Elphaba's sister plays nearly no role in the story to progress this plot besides establishing why Elphaba is even at the college of wiz in the first place, the prince plot with the roommate is also pretty pointless, as it has nothing to do with wicked or Elphaba turning evil. Alpha becoming popular ALSO isn't particularly important as it only plays in the movie for like 5 seconds till she gets on the train to leave. The only person who needed to recognize Elphaba's beauty to progress the plot is Glinda! who needs to come with her to oz. In particular there was once scene, right after they save the baby leopard, she starts singing a love song?? very jarring.

In my personal opinion, and I realize this movie was more about the singing than the story, but in my opinion, this could have been one movie. Shunt the sister plot, shunt the love triangle, lock into Elphaba learning magic, Show more of the animal problems to build actual importance to their plot, Have her bond with Glinda in some other way, then go to Oz and learn the wizard is evil. This way we have real reason to see why Elphaba would be so upset, instead of just a vague " the animals are being captured" We are simply not really shown the issues, we are told them. (I cannot think of a single meaningful thing that the Munchkin boy Elphaba's sister falls in love with contributes to the movie)

Again, there is a part 2 coming, these B plots MAY amount to something eventually, but as it stands they're weak, and I didn't like them very much, and they detracted from the driving forces of our A plot.

Overall, if you like the wizard of oz and musicals and fun colorful movies, go see it. If you're looking for a thoughtful interesting plot... maybe skip it.

Till next time.