After a decades-long wait, Wicked Part 1 flew into theaters last night. A film adaptation of the smash Broadway hit has been percolating for years, plagued by constant delays and a revolving door of creatives. Director Jon M. Chu finally signed on to bring the story to the big screen, enlisting Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande to play the main roles of Elphaba and Glinda, respectively. As the credits roll on Wicked, one thing is crystal clear: good things come to those who wait, and what Universal has created here is well worth the headaches it took to get here.
Wicked stands out amongst musical adaptations
Wicked is an incredible adaptation of a stage musical. I haven’t seen In the Heights, Chu’s first musical film, but he clearly knows how to direct musicals. The song and dance numbers in Wicked leap off the screen and very much feel like stage performances elevated to new heights. The choreography is impeccable, the singing is fantastic, and the emotional punches land with precision.
Wicked may be one of the best movie musicals I’ve ever seen. I’m a musical fan in general, but I haven’t felt this swept up in a musical film in a long time. In fact, the movie reminded me of how I felt watching the stage performance for the first time! That’s no easy feat, considering how difficult it can be to adapt stage performances to film (just ask Universal about Cats).
The production design in Wicked is outstanding. Everything feels incredibly real, from the poppy fields of Munchkinland to the vibrant downtown core of the Emerald City. The costume design lives up to the environments as well. Glinda’s pink dress may look like slices of ham piled upon each other, but luckily, her other outfits don’t suffer the same fate. Fiyero’s seemingly simple shirt and pants actually have a more complex Ozian twist in close-ups, while Elphaba’s black cloak seems to grow and shrink depending on how much power it can add to a scene.
So much attention to detail has been poured into every aspect of life in Oz, creating a rich world that viewers will instantly want to spend more time in. Despite its nearly three-hour runtime, the film is paced fairly well. It might slow down a little after a while at Shiz University, but the excellent songs keep things moving along at a good clip. If the musical numbers were subpar, the film certainly would’ve dragged, but luckily that’s not a concern here.
The cast of Wicked Part 1
A good cast can further elevate any script, and everyone in Wicked arrived on set with something to prove. Cynthia Erivo is magical as Elphaba, bringing her to the big screen in a beautifully nuanced way. Her mournful glances speak volumes, contrasting sharply with Ariana Grande-Butera’s over-the-top Galinda. Erivo is a powerhouse actress and is instantly iconic in this role.
It’s easy to see why Grande-Butera campaigned so hard to play Elphaba’s counterpart. She’s perfect as Galinda, strongly establishing herself as a force to be reckoned with. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Grande-Butera, but I was immediately won over, thanks in no small part to the hilarious hair flips Galinda is always deploying.
Jonathan Bailey does a fantastic job as Fiyero, who flirts with anyone in his eyeline at Shiz University. Michelle Yeoh is well-cast as Madame Morrible and is a strong counterpart to Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard. She’s always a welcome presence on screen and surprisingly says something to Galinda that almost exactly matches what Yeoh’s character says to Rachel in Crazy Rich Asians, also directed by Jon M. Chu, which got a smile out of me in the theater.
The rest of the cast is solid, with Bowen Yang and Bronwyn James standing out as Galinda’s hilariously rude friends/minions.
Where Wicked Part 1 stumbles
All that being said, Wicked Part 1 isn’t a perfect movie. It’s often stunningly beautiful, but some creative choices can be equally baffling. The lighting in particular is something that’s gotten lots of attention on social media, and it’s noticeably bad in certain scenes. “Dancing Through Life” is a great musical sequence, but it’s entirely backlit thanks to the sunlight coming in through the windows, which makes the characters look awful in certain shots. It’s clearly an intentional creative choice for that scene, but it hurts the movie.
There’s pretty good use of color throughout the film, but that feels like another aspect that could have been dialed up. Some sets do look surprisingly grayish and not like the vibrant, Technicolor world we all expect Oz to be.
The sound in my theater was also off. This was noticeable from the very beginning of the film, when the words in “No One Mourns the Wicked” could barely be deciphered. I’ve never wanted subtitles more when watching a movie in theaters, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue with the film’s sound mix. Chu posted on Twitter about how theaters were screening the film at a “6.4” even though it was designed to be screened at a “7”. The sound in my theater improved about halfway through, but not by very much.
I saw Wicked in Dolby Cinema, and the sound was definitely not what I expect from a premium format screening. It was super quiet, which really hurt the musical numbers. In Dolby Cinema, I expect the surround sound to be booming around the theater to the point where it vibrates my seat and fully immerses me in the world of the film. That was not at all the case with Wicked and that was a huge shame. Hopefully, the sound in my next screening is set to the right volume because I do feel like my audience was robbed from experiencing the film at its best.
This is how two-part movies should be made
Wicked is about to become the blueprint for splitting a story into two films. This trend was popular between 2010 and 2015 with many young adult franchises concluding with a two-part finale. It’s seen a resurgence in the 2020s with the Dune, Mission Impossible, and Spider-Verse films, but they’ve all been missing a key ingredient of the two-parter formula: you need to film both parts back-to-back!!
Dune and Spider-Verse greatly frustrated me because both first parts ended on a massive cliffhanger or ended just as the story was actually going somewhere, with no guarantee it would continue. Everything worked out for the best with Dune: Part Two, though I maintain that a 2.5 year wait for the second half of a story is extremely frustrating. On the other hand, the second part of Across the Spider-Verse’s story is completely up in the air, with no release date in sight.
Wicked successfully reverses this trend. The third act of the film is particularly strong, bringing the story to a very satisfying ending that leaves you desperately wanting more, but without abandoning the audience on a painful cliffhanger. And because it’s followed the original two-part films’ recipe for success, Wicked Part 2 is filmed and ready for release exactly one year after the first film. That’s the proper way to do things, and other franchises need to take notes.
Wicked is already one of the best films of the year and seems to be a unique phenomenon. Hopefully, this team can keep the hype going for another year and stick the landing with a fantastic sequel that puts a new spin on the classic Wizard of Oz tale. We’ll see how it turns out, but for now, Wicked Part 1 is certainly defying gravity and flying high above its competition.
Wicked on Broadway: A Must See Musical Experience
Book Review: Wicked by Gregory Maguire
