Synopsis:
Wicked is the backstory of the Wizard and Witches in the Land of Oz. Where did flying monkeys come from? Why is the Wizard doing steampunk cosplay with no magic at all? Why can the lion talk? Why is the bad Witch green? Is there more to Glinda than being "good?" Wicked sets out to explain Oz without deconstructing the original in the process. It achieves that purpose. For anyone wanting more, there are books upon which the stage show is based.
The Good
There is a lot of good. I liked 90% of this movie.
Oz is an eccentric place. Everything from the nonsensical words to the quirky architecture to the Rube Goldberg engineering immerses the viewer in a world that's both familiar and also fantastic. The movie does a terrific job making The Land of Oz silly and fun. I was thrilled at how many practical effects they used. CGI is not my favorite device for creating scene, tension, and action. I would rather a movie use real sets and create tension with silence and mystery. Let my imagination create the demons. Wicked does a pretty good job of not overcooking the tension custard. The CGI animals were okay. The CGI forests were meh. But the physical sets in bedrooms, courtyard and library were totally awesome. Real sets > CGI anything.
The story is well told and I was enjoyably immersed in the Land of Oz for 2 hours and 30 minutes of its 2:40 runtime.
The musical numbers are good, probably helped by having real singers not past their prime *glares at Meryl Streep*. I was a little disappointed in Defying Gravity. The emotional setup wasn't really there for me, and so the song's payoff was muted. Still good but again... better on stage.
DEI was not a problem in this one. The gayness was silly and fun. It actually added to the outrageousness of Oz. I loved the chubby queen's flamboyant outfits and eye wear. That's gay done right. It should be outrageous and silly. That's what people want. Nobody wants to see real fags doing real life shit. We should be able to see a gay guy in a movie and know right away he's gay and while that's okay, it's also not mainstream. Oz is a perfect place for gays to be like, "Ohmahgod look at her shoes!" and then her shoes are some wacky curled toed sparkle boots. I loved it.
The Bad
I hated the Enchantment Under The Sea dance. It's hard to explain but nothing about that scene struck me as genuine.
Jeff Goldblum was miscast. He sucks at being an evil Wizard. I've seen stage productions where the Wizard is truly evil. Goldblum is not. He quirkily stumbles and mumbles through scenes. Basically you have Jeff Goldblum being Jeff Goldblum in a green suit. He's been doing the same character since Jurassic Park. Enough already. And to be fair, the green suit was badass but the casting was simply off. The most evil thing he does is defer to the real villain, a bureaucracy hell bent on turning Wonderful Oz into the mundane world where the viewer lives, which would be a tragedy. If the directors didn't want to make Golblum a big fat meanie, okay, at least flesh out the bureaucracy into an evil I can understand. Give me something to dislike, dammit. The antagonist in this movie is basically, "A witch and some other evil people want to normatize Oz into a less magical place. Also, Jeff Goldblum is there." It doesn't work.
Boq is a munchkin from Munchkin land. That means he's short. So there's lots of short jokes. Get it? Cuz he's short. He and a girl in a wheelchair can't see over his classmates during orientation, lol. People make height jokes in front of him. Ha! So funny. But...and I might be picking a tiny nit here, if you're going to make short jokes about a munchkin, HE CAN'T BE TALLER THAN THE LEAD! The director uses camera angles and stuff during the jokes but outside of that, there's Boq standing next to everyone being pretty fukken average in height, and towering over most of the girls. Bad casting again.
Dialogue during the first hour is clunky and not very good. Emotional tone varies from sentence to sentence during a single conversation. It was obviously filmed with stand-ins. This is an area where stage is far superior to screen. On stage, the actors play off each other and their emotional energy develops organically over the duration of the show. Characters act and react in ways that you can't duplicate in a movie. After the first hour of the movie, dialogue between characters improved. Or I stopped noticing. Probably the latter.
How Ephalba became green is explained in the stage production but not in the movie. Not sure why and the movie is not better for the omission.
The Ugly
I only have one Ugly moment to pick on. Ephalba's cape.
It starts out as a cloak that Glinda casually picks up and puts around her friend. Then Ephalba flies around and it gets longer. And longer. And after a few trips around the castle, holy hell what is that? When Ephalba is super-hero-posing in the sunset that thing is at least 30' long and 50' wide. 166 yards of fabric, folks. Looks like a fucking cartoon. Looks like Spawn the comic book character. It's a small nit, I know, but dammit the rest of the show was so good. Why make it retarded with a CGI cape?
Look at this shit!
In total, Wicked the movie was tremendously better than most Hollywood adaptations of Broadway productions. 4 out of 5 stars. Would issue again.
