Wicked (2024) Review

I, like many people, have been holding space for the lyrics of defying gravity and for this review.

Elphaba's mother had an affair with the Wizard. I'm not sure if we're supposed to know that at this stage or if he's supposed to be a mysterious stranger, but its very obviously Jeff Goldblum.

The parents are strangely horrified by Elphaba being born with green skin given they have a wolf for a midwife and a bear for a nurse.

"It's alright little one, he shouldn't have blamed you" Child Elphaba is told by a random bear. Even though she did the thing she was blamed for.

Glinda goes full wickerman on a statue of Elphaba as the townspeople cheer and dance.

The bubble is fantastic, beautifully done, slightly wobbly and when it pops there's a very subtle rainbow in the air. Love it very much.

The framing of Wicked is a random townsperson asks Glinda if it was true she was Elphaba's friend on her way out of the village and basically Glinda decides to info dump. Good for us, the audience, probably a pretty frustrating afternoon for the townspeople who had other things to do than sit through five hours of the Good Witch waxing lyrical about her school days.

Glinda goes full Plastic with her 'Blick' and "strangers are just people I've never met"

The students at Shiz are also shocked, horrified and pitying of the girl with green skin. They are completely unphased by the two professors who are talking animals.

We're told by the staff that true magic is increasingly rare. Naturally Elphaba, who's only supposed to be giving Nessarose assistance to her room gets annoyed and does her levitating trick. Madam Morrible claims credit to keep things quiet, fast tracks her into the school, and plans to privately tutor her. Galinda's horrified that she, for once, hasn't got her way.

The section of the Wizard and I where she sings about 'de-greenify' is beautifully shot with light coming through spinning coloured glass changing her skin tone through a rainbow.

I think we're supposed to think Galinda's being unfair by only giving a little space to Elphaba in her room, but honestly she was railroaded into having a roommate in her room. She's been reasonably decent about the whole thing and Elphaba's got a pretty big chip on her shoulder about the whole thing for someone who wasn't supposed to be at that school twenty minutes ago. One of the challenges is Ariana Grande is such a likeable person, it carries over to Galinda and its hard to separate it.

Galinda ramps up the mean girl nastiness in front of the animal professor of history and also asks some profoundly stupid questions. "Poppy's are my favourite, they keep me cheerful in these dark times" is a doubly cutting comment from the depressed Goat given their medicinal use and their symbolism.

Elphaba follows Dr Dilamond and listens in to his private conversations with his friends. He's pretty unfazed by her breach of basic decency. Animals are losing the ability to speak. This is a bit of a horrifying thing to have as a B plot.

First Elphaba and then Galinda meet the charming rogue of our story, who is unbothered by Galinda's skin colour and leads the students in a big dance number. His name's Fiyero. He's a student at Shiz. Even though Cynthia and Ariana are hardly school age, this guy gives strong "How do you do fellow kids" or the elderly Luke Perry in 90210. The actor is closer to forty than thirty, his child would be a more appropriate age to attend Shiz. Perhaps he is a mature student.

The roommate scene was already very close to the roommates scene in Wednesday. We then get a very very similar dancing movements from Elphaba at the ball. Galinda, feeling like a pretty terrible person for her behaviour (as Elphaba got her into the sorcery program) mimics her weird crazy person dancing. Ariana manages to bring a certain grace to the odd movements, but Elphaba continues looking like a puppet with an ungainly puppeteer.

The girls share some secrets and Galinda love bombs the hell out of "Elphie". Given no one other than a Goat and an elderly student has ever shown Elphaba even the most basic human kindness this is extremely effective. We then get one of the best songs in the show, Popular.

The animal Professor tells us it's his last day, and that animals will no longer be allowed to teach. Immediately after that he's dragged off campus by the police. Its a bit weird. I'd honestly have cut the bit with him saying they were not able to speak any more.

Apparently 'cages' are a new innovation in Oz. (Which must make it very easy to escape from an Oz prison.) It (rightly) pisses off Elphaba so much she uses her magic to put everyone but Fiyero into an opium induced sleep. Fiyero breaks the cub out of the cage without hesitation. His characterisation is basically Charlie "Wild Card" Kelly at this point, its deeply inconsistent. Fiyero questions why he was the only one she didn't effect with the spell, I'd just assumed it was because unlike the other students he's developed a tolerance to opioids due to his many, many, decades of life.

Elphaba is summoned to the Wizard, and brings Galinda (now Glinda in solidarity of Dr Dilamond). As they explore the city we're treated to Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth on stage vying for attention on stage during a retelling of the Wizards arrival.

We get the "I am Oz the great and terrible" and then Jeff comes out to say hello and do some very terrible up close magic for us. The Wizard does to Glinda what she did to Boq at the start, calling her Balinda. He's basically playing Grandmaster or Zeus from his more recent outings. All Ego driven generosity. He's pretty much Glinda all grown up.

The Grimmerie is a deeply inconvenient shape for a book. There's a reason we use rectangles. It's a bit 'different just to be different' honestly. But Elphie casts a spell, as the Wizard and Morrible planned, granting wings to their monkey guards. Elphaba figures out the Wizards a fraud and all his magic is fake.

Morrible rallies the flying monkeys to chase Elphaba telling them "she did this" maybe its just me, but if someone gave me giant cool wings that let me fly I'd not be angry and chasing them down, I'd be protecting them. Wings would be AMAZING!

Glinda kills a guy. He's grabbed her leg as they try and escape in the Wizards balloon, and she hits him with a sandbag. he then falls maybe 3 stories to land spine first on a wooden floor.

Glinda and Elphaba face off, and then we get Wicked's best song. I hate to say it, but Cynthia's third for me, after seeing Idina on stage in London and (don't judge me!) Kurt & Rachel face off in Glee.

With hat and cloak from Glinda, Grimmarie from the wizard and broom by her own craft Elphaba defies gravity.

Worth noting the guards are useless. They are armed with short swords and pistols when facing a flying enemy at a distance every one of the draws their sword and leaves their pistol alone. There would be no sequel if even one guard had been trained.

The film does suffer from being way too long. Its 2h 40 mins and that's only half of the total film. Its been split in two. The first film is already longer than the stage adaption.