Wicked: Elphaba, a young woman ridiculed for her green skin, and Glinda, a popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. After an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads.

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Introduction

If you’re a fan of Broadway shows, I’m sure you’ve seen Wicked. So far, it received mixed reviews, which I don’t know why because I think it did it justice. If you haven’t seen the musical, “Wicked” tells the untold story of the Land of Oz, focusing on the rivalry and eventual friendship between Elphaba, a green-skinned woman, and Glinda, a beautiful, popular girl, at Shiz University. The musical explores how their different paths lead Elphaba to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda to become Glinda the Good, while also featuring other characters from L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”.

Characters

Elphaba, played by the wonderful Cynthia Erivo, was the main focal point of the story, and yes, she rose up to the occassion and performed well. Playing as the green, outcasted, despised, yet kind and powerful witch. Her expression of not really minding what other people say or think about her was perfect. Rolling of the eyes and side-eyeing a useless comment. These subtle moves contribute to her character’s overall personality. And that iconic final performance of “Defying Gravity” was beautifully done.

Glinda, played by Ariana Grande, I’d say is my favorite character and performance of an actress in the movie. Ariana showed everyone that she’s not all voice or concert shows, and that she can act. I love how quirky she is, and how towering she is when surrounded by “regular” people. Even her hand gestures, its much like that of Queen Clarisse Renaldi in The Princess Diaries (2001), very graceful yet commanding at the same time. Her voice is very annoying, but its a perfect fit for her character, very childlike and spoiled.

Its a pleasure to see Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum. Mainly because I love hearing their voice, its very distinct and you could easily tell its theirs when they do VAs for other films.

An underutilized cast here I’d say was the actress that played Miss Coddle, Keala Settle. She played in broadways and musicals, and she was awesome in The Greatest Showman (2017). Would’ve been great if she had a song number of her own.

Big budget production

In terms of broadway adaptation to the big screen, I’d say this takes the cake. With 145 million USD in production cost, it should perform well, and it did. The effects, costumes, sounds, all of it was handled carefully and treated to the highest degree. In comparison, this felt like it had the Marvel movie treatment.

Music

While no new songs were added, there were some changes to the original score of Wicked. They’re very minimal but the changes were necessary to fit the movie adaptation and the actors/actresses involved.

Was it too long?

Clocking in at around 2 hours and 40 minutes, the movie adaptation is as long as the whole musical duration. The reason being is that to allow more character development and it expands some scenes that were on the original book. The Wicked musical is the condensed version of the book, whereas the movie showcases some moments left out of the musical.

Effects and costumes

The effects were awesome. From the animal teachers, the magics performed, and most of all, the iconic scene of Elphaba’s Defying Gravity. The CGI gave it more oomph and added that extra flair where the cloak (though not sure how it became as big as a tall window curtain) expanded, with the sun shining behind her.

The costumes are to be applauded for. It breathe life in the world of Wicked, much like in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Jim Carrey), Whoville felt like a real place because of the costumes and makeup that the production did.

What I didn’t like

• As much as they want to force down our throats of Ariana and Erivo’s characters being friends and having chemistry, unfortunately there was none. All throughout the movie, somehow I could feel Erivo despising Ariana’s character. There’s just a gap between them that I can’t explain. There was no chemistry between them whatsoever.
• The supposed “love triangle” was annoying. Annoying in a sense that it didn’t feel like it was. They were there, they had interactions. They had song numbers. But there wasn’t a time where it felt like they had a spark, it was a meh element for me.
• Erivo’s performance was… eehhh, it was okay. Her vibe and presence didn’t feel as though she was oppressed or bullied, it felt like she was above the rest. I never once felt sorry for her character.

Conclusion

I’ve watched the Wicked musical twice in the Philippines, and it was my first ever Broadway musical experience and the reason I fell in love with the medium(?). Everything about the adaptation was great, I love the changes that they did, it highlighted the strengths of the actor/actresses involved. Though I wasn’t much of a fan of Erivo’s performance, she did however rose to the occasions during her song numbers. The adaptation was a bit long but I didn’t get bored. If was a fun ride and definitely did the musical justice.