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Wicked Part I (yes, there’s more to come!) opens with the news that… DING! DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD!
No, not Thatcher again, but Glinda The Good (Ariana Grande (Don’t Look Up), using her full birthname of Ariana Grande-Butera, because reasons) is on hand to tell the story about how she knew her… cue flashback to the start of the story.
Elphaba (fully-grown version as Cynthia Erivo – Luther: The Fallen Sun) is the green daughter to Governor Thropp (Andy Nyman – The Glass Man), who’s in a mixed-race relationship with Mrs. Thropp (Courtney Mae-Briggs) because it’s 2024, and… yes, green. This gets noticed, but then is completely ignored by the parents going forward.
Ariana arrives at Hogwarts University (well, it may as well be)… ok, Shiz University, becomes friends with Elphaba (the name coming from the creator of the characters, L Frank Baum – L.F.B… Elphaba) – albeit later being shortened to ‘Elfie’, ending up having to share a dorm with her. In fact, Glinda’s so full of herself and clearly has “Main character syndrome”, that when Elfie is struggling at Uni due to the colour of her skin, she even declares she’ll make Elfie her ‘project’!
I’m not big on musicals, and I baulked at the fact this one runs for almost three hours in length – and if this was a Bollywood movie, it would at least have an intermission, and there’s a potential one after 75 minutes – but it has a few bits of humour thrown in. Nothing which stands out as a belly laugh, but an occasional chuckle, such as when Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey – Bridgerton) turns up, and the token gay lad comments to him, “Enroll here often?”
Plus, there’s is a moment which chimed with me, when Ariana says, “I could care less about…” something or other, and Elfie corrects her, “It’s: I *couldn’t* care less”.
Part of the PG rating is for discrimination, regarding how Boq (Ethan Slater) eternally and obviously fancies Glinda, but instead, she suggests he be a suitor for Nessarose (Marissa Bode), because she’s lonely, simply because… she’s in a wheelchair. What the hell?! How backwards is this writing?!
It’s also not something to aspire to that Glinda needs, and depends upon a man to validate her existence, as she’s forever hanging around the Prince, and gets ‘well jel’ if he so much TALKS to another woman there.
Also, why is almost everyone (except the leads) wearing University uniform on day one, yet never bothering afterwards?
As for this film, stated as ‘Wicked‘ on the posters, yet stated in the opening credits as being ‘Wicked Part I‘, and over two-and-a-half hours for half a story is waaaaay too long. I was flagging just after the two-hour mark, as Jeff Goldblum, as the ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, was simply being Jeff Goldblum, as usual, having not long since entered the chat, and I was waiting for it to hurry up and finish.
The only song that sort-of stuck in the mind was Defying Gravity, as it comes very late on in the film, and was played to death in the trailer. And you don’t need to spend extra money on Dolby, nor IMAX, to hear it ‘one louder’, as Ms Erivo’s vocals will easily deafen you, whichever screen you’re watching it on (mine was a Laser screen).
There’s a link between Wicked and the finale of BBC’s soap, Doctors, since while before the film, I’d only seen The Wizard of Oz, when it came to the story (which does get a brief nod, as the camera zooms over the cast from that film, in the opening moments), in that episode, Shaun Prendergast‘s character thought he was going deaf (above), until he had his earwax removed… and then I saw him (very briefly) as the Shiz President, in a production where, after almost three hours of ear-splitting songs, I figured I might wish that *I* was deaf! 😀
I also had the option to watch this in 3D, but while I normally would go for that – since they don’t come along in 3D for home formats, as well as the fact that Wicked wasn’t shot in 3D, firstly, I thought sitting through almost 3 hours of a musical was enough, without trying to concentrate on the 3D aspect, throughout.
Plus, since 3D glasses make the screen darker – and this is a film all about bright colours, I saw from a review that, there’s a nighttime scene with Elphaba singing in the dark, and with the 3D glasses on, the screen is pitch black!
When watching in 2D, I saw the song for that scene was “I’m Not That Girl”, and that the scene was fairly bright by comparison to an earlier forest scene between two characters (I’ll avoid naming them to avoid potential spoilers). Still, I know sometimes, someone in China creates hooky 3D versions, so chances are, they’ll actually correct the brightness for that scene when they render it!
It is a cash-grab for the format, though, since in 2D, I couldn’t see a single moment where I thought 3D would suit it, and only pointed out those moments where you can get a sense of the depth onscreen simply from the 2D version. Also, there was a fair bit of quick-cutting between elements in a scene, which doesn’t suit 3D at all, as your eyes need to adjust. If it had a lot of moments of the camera being allowed to pan across a scene, and not too fast, there might’ve been some potential for it.
But as it is, such 3D is unnecessary, and is the sort of conversion that put people off the format in the first place, since they weren’t getting any extra benefit from their extra cash.
Wicked Part I is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
However, you can buy a load of Wicked merchandise, a ton of Wicked LEGO, Wicked: The Grimmerie, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Hit Broadway Musical (Hardback), as well as the paperback novel.
There’s also the CD Soundtrack and Vinyl Soundtrack.
Wicked Part II is due for release on November 21st 2025.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 160 minutes
Release date: November 22nd 2024
Studio: Universal Pictures
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (ARRIRAW (6.5K), Anamorphic Ultra Panavision 70)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 3/10
Director: Jon M Chu
Producers: Marc Platt, David Stone
Screenplay: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
Musical book: Winnie Holzman
Novel: Gregory Maguire
Characters: L Frank Baum
Music: John Powell, Stephen Schwartz
Cast:
Glinda: Ariana Grande (as Ariana Grande-Butera)
Elphaba: Cynthia Erivo
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Jeff Goldblum
Madame Morrible: Michelle Yeoh
Prince Fiyero: Jonathan Bailey
Boq: Ethan Slater
Nessarose: Marissa Bode
Dr. Dillamond: Peter Dinklage (voice)
Governor Thropp: Andy Nyman
Mrs. Thropp: Courtney Mae-Briggs
Pfannee: Bowen Yang
Shenshen: Bronwyn James
Avaric: Aaron Teoh
Shiz President: Shaun Prendergast
Miss. Coddle: Keala Settle
Dulcibear: Sharon D Clarke (voice)
Wolf Doctor: Jenna Boyd (voice)
Professor Nikidik: Colin Michael Carmichael
Young Elphaba: Karis Musongole
Young Nessarose: Cesily Collette Taylor
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.