It’s Hard to Say ‘Wicked’ is Bad. It’s an Acceptable Spectacle
It's also quite long for something that only tells half the story.
(SPOT.ph) Here is something that the marketing for Wicked doesn’t exactly make clear: the full title of it is actually Wicked Part 1. And this isn’t because the filmmakers have decided to expand the story and pre-greenlight a sequel following the events presented in the stage musical. This movie, which is somehow just about as long as the full running time of the stage musical it’s adapting, somehow only gets to the end of act one.
As one might expect, this causes a couple of pacing issues. Whereas the stage version feels like it’s musically propelling its characters to an inevitable reckoning with what they believe about the WIzard and the land he rules over, the movie feels like it’s taking a stroll. There’s a lot of air added between scenes, and it feels as though there’s a sense of repetition to some of the musical numbers, like they’re being stretched out so they feel bigger, but they don’t necessarily have anything new to say.
Is it wicked good? It's bursting with talent
This isn’t to say the movie is unenjoyable. It is bursting with talent - Cynthia Erivo is terrific as Elphaba, easily wearing the character’s green-tinted pathos as she delivers show stopping numbers. Ariana Grande is great as Galinda, too, easily playing up the unblinking irony of the character’s shallow perception of the world. Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero is a delight, as are the turns from the likes of Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh. The film offers up an embarrassment of riches when it comes to its performers.
It’s got talent behind the camera, too. Jon M. Chu knows a thing or two about mounting musical numbers, having directed the movie adaptation of In the Heights, and before that, putting together the dance sequences in several Step Up movies. And when there are plenty of people on screen moving in unison, there’s enough joy and inventiveness on screen to distract from the film’s massive length.
But it isn’t exactly a remedy.
In case you missed the point
The musical was always broad with its themes, but now it feels like it’s overexplaining them. And it kind of exposes the story for the shallowness of its metaphors, and how they don’t exactly fit well within a soaring, at times campy music. The movie doesn’t actually expand on the story’s ideas: it doesn’t try at all to complicate the morality presented in the narrative. It instead just makes everything longer, making sure that absolutely no one in the theater misses the point of the story.
It’s hard to say that Wicked is bad: there’s just so much talent in it that one can’t say it doesn’t have value. But it feels unconscionable that the movie is this long while only delivering half the story. It is, as big movies go, an acceptable spectacle. But there is something very bothersome about how this narrative was stretched out while adding very little of value to the entire thing. It seems like the kind of thing Elphaba wouldn’t approve of. It’s pretty, but where’s the substance?