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Before watching Wicked, I had to ask myself if I was really ready to see another musical adapted to the big screen. The stage and cinema are two very different media, and the explicit charm of something like Cats (musical) translates horribly to anything where you can’t have the background written off as set dressing. [...]
Before watching Wicked, I had to ask myself if I was really ready to see another musical adapted to the big screen. The stage and cinema are two very different media, and the explicit charm of something like Cats (musical) translates horribly to anything where you can't have the background written off as set dressing.
Even with more serious musicals like Les Miserables, there's always the question of pacing: cinema demands a certain kind of continuity that you can fudge on stage, and the transition process is never smooth.
I got to really see that put to test with Wicked, an adaptation of a musical I absolutely adore. I'm gonna be real with you, I went into this pretty cynically- the celebrity casting, the CGI backgrounds and the lack of any music in the marketing had me very wary of what I was going to see.
Wicked And Its Love Of The Stage
It made me all the more surprised when I actually sat down for the movie and got a pretty sincere adaptation of half of one of my favorite musicals. For the most part, the Wicked movie is dripping in a love for the stage: every background feels like elaborate set design, with a lot of the same principles one might preach for a musical production.
A lot of it comes down to a commitment to how they want the movie to look. It's visually gorgeous in a way that looks good on the screen, but everything moves and is interacted with in the kind of tactile charm that stage productions bring.
That's not to say that it's the fabled No-CGI movie, no- but by skipping out on the big Transformers Geometry Vomit that a lot of movies like to go for when they want to show something wild and fantastical, Wicked looks like every single one of its props was a physical item that the cast actually interacted with rather than pantomimed.
It also helps that the performances in the movie themselves are great. Ariana Grande absolutely slays as Glinda The Good, in a way that's simultaneously not a slave to Kristen Chenoweth's performance but also carries that same charm that makes her so beloved anyways. I can't stress this enough- even as someone with no interest in her discography I could watch Ariana Grande strut up and down a hallway mouthing off every single one of Glinda's ramblings and breaking into song- she's just that good.
Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba is equally good, though the fact that Elphaba is the quieter of the two certainly does mean she's occasionally out-shined. One of my biggest complaints with the movie also affects Erivo's performances- because Elphaba mainly sings during big moments in the movie, the incessant need to cut to silent moments really kills the flow of the song. You don't need to build tension, the tension comes with the natural pauses in the song, dammit.
Defying Common Sense
The other big gripe comes with the fact that Wicked is, in fact, actually only the first half of the story: the final act of the movie is instead being saved for a sequel. You can definitely feel there's a bit of padding out in the first act to justify this in Part 1- while not nowhere near Hobbit levels it's definitely Hobbit-adjacent.
Still, as far as movies based on musical goes, Wicked soars over every roadblock I was worried it was going to hit. It lovingly transposes the charms of the stage production to the screen to create a visually gorgeous movie filled with some stellar performances. If you want an alluring story about magic, friendship and flying monkeys, here's a good way to spend your weekend.
Final Score: 8/10
Wicked screening provided by UIP Malaysia. Wicked available in cinemas 21st November