Delayed by Covid and then a writers’ strike, this adaptation of the 2003 musical Wicked finally hits the silver screen at exactly the right time, given this month’s unusually cold weather.
What better than to cosy up in the warmth at either of Westside’s two giant multiplex cinemas, at Cineworld Broad Street or Odeon Luxe Broadway Plaza, and be enthralled by a high-concept trip to Oz!
Wicked (PG, 160 mins). The Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) will finally see you now!
Directed by John M Chu (Crazy Rich Asians), this film sees Arianna Grande and Cynthia Erivo star as Glinda (Good Witch of the North) and Elphaba (the green-skinned Wicked Witch) respectively.
Jonathan Bailey is potential love interest Prince Fiyero Tigelaar, with Marissa Bode starring as Elphaba’s wheelchair bound sister, Nessarose.
Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) takes great interest in aspiring scorceror Elphaba when she inadvertently reveals her special powers at Shiz University. But what might Madame’s motive be?
Dr Dillamond, a professorial talking goat, worries that other creatures are losing their civil rights and voices.
Will the Wizard be able to help them – and Elphaba, too – if she gets to meet him via the impressive Emerald Express?
And where will frenemy Galinda (or Glinda as she rebrands herself) fit into the bigger picture?
Verdict: ☆☆☆☆
Big, bright, bold and colourfully costumed, Wicked is what imaginative, blockbuster cinema is all about, with sparkling lead performances and giant, magical sets springing to life.
The scene which determines the colour of the ‘yellow’ brick road is especially good – a reflection of how so much of modern life comes with choices that belong in the heart.
With themes of prejudice, friendship and self-determination, the story feels relevant even though it is rooted in L Frank Baum novel from 1900. This led to the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie, which inspired Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked, which then spawned the 2003 musical!
The cast feels inclusive without being diverse for the sake of it and, here on Westside, the film will be best seen in brilliant IMAX format at Cineworld, or in iSense or Dolby at Odeon Luxe.
As a musical, Wicked is not in the same league as La La Land, Les Miserables or The Greatest Showman. But it certainly leaves Cats for dead and let’s see what happens next… this is only Part One, with the second half scheduled for 21 November 2025.
As an appetiser for that, the classic song Defying Gravity peaks brilliantly during the spectacular climax.
Children under ten deserve a stabbings-free film of this scale, ambition, cinema trickery and, yes, super-fun scary bits which will live long in their memories. Less so one that runs to 160 minutes.
Wicked has more emotional pull than the distant echoes of Harry Potter (JK Rowling’s first novel was in 1997, after Wicked) and her later Fantastic Beasts movies.
If only Universal had remembered – for children at least – that the original Wizard of Oz has endured partly thanks to its economical, family-friendly 102-minute running time.
Proof that even when you are going over the rainbow, less can always be more.
Your reviewer: Graham Young has been reviewing films for the media in Birmingham for the last 35 years, serving the Birmingham Mail, Birmingham Post, Sunday Mercury, BirminghamLive and BBC WM. He was the 1996 Regional Film Journalist of the Year, and runner-up 1997-99.
ENDS
