Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum
Written By: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
Directed By: Jon M. Chu
Studio: Universal Pictures

The Broadway hit has now become a box office hit thanks to Jon M. Chu, and the cast of the movie. I know I’m in a small minority but Wicked wasn’t my thing and I didn’t think it was a particularly good movie. But the movie is still in theaters and now available for rent or purchase on all streaming sites.

Wicked (Part 1) is based on the hit Broadway musical and Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, reimagines the world of Oz, offering a backstory for the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande). The backstory reveals their unlikely friendship at Shiz University. Oz begins to go through some authoritarian rules and Elphaba stands up for outcasts like herself.

Contrary to what people think, I do like some musicals. I love the original Wizard of Oz but I wasn’t a fan of Wicked. I like the older musicals because they have some big band/jazz elements to it but now most musicals are pop garbage. I still have PTSD from hearing “Adele Dazeem” belting out “Defying Gravity” every morning when I would see the Wicked commercial while watching the Today Show. I had to rush to find the remote to mute the commercial. With that said, I still went in with a some-what open mind to see if the movie would be good or not. I mainly wanted my wife to be happy with seeing this and she of course loved it, me on the other hand I just had a lot of problems with it.

I think the one song that I liked and is an ear worm is “Dancing Through Life.” The rest, not so much, for me anyway. From a movie perspective, I just thought it was all over the place and way too long…AND THIS IS JUST PART 1! As much as I love The Hobbit, those movies didn’t need to be 3 movies as well. There were times where I was bored and then people would just belt into songs randomly. There was no flow to the songs and movies in my opinion. I could barely figure out the plot – something about a green witch, a sickly looking blonde witch, talking animals wearing glasses and some university called Shiz for some reason. Fa Realz. I’d like to think if there was ever a Spamalot or Book of Mormon movie, they wouldn’t do the entire musical and trim it down a bit.

Cynthia and Ariana are great singers but just felt the acting for everyone involved wasn’t the best due to acting in front of green screens. Maybe I’m just not a fan of Ariana but didn’t think she was the best, and for some reason the blonde hair on her seems weird to me. I thought Michelle Yeoh felt out of place in it as well. As much as I love The Goldblum, even he can’t save this movie for me. Blasphemy I know!

The CGI was a bit overkill like most movies nowadays and kind of wish they took a more low key approach. At least the apes in Planet of the Apes movies looked good, these purple looking monkeys were too cartoony for me. I know people have complained about the color of the movie not being vibrant enough and I can see their point. It felt like the shadows were faded out a little like an Instagram filter.

I doubt most of you finished reading this review but I just wasn’t a fan and frankly, didn’t care for the revisionist plot where the Wicked Witch is actually good and Glinda is a snot. What is this ,Mean Girls: Oz Edition?

Bottom Line: What’s next, a musical where Freddie Kreuger is a misunderstood killer who doesn’t want to haunt teens in their nightmares?
Running Time: 160 mins
Rating: PG
Overall Rating: