#174 - Mountain Dew & Movie Theater Popcorn merrily mount: The Twelve Days of Smokemas Day 4 | Wicked (Pt.1) Review

Wicked is one of my all time favorite musicals. Others in my top include: Assassins, Urinetown, Little Shop of Horrors, and Gypsy. I like a bit of comedy but I love a great song. And I'm a Sondheim > ALW person all day everyday but also was raised by Howard Ashman so, lots going on!

My teenage musical was Spring Awakening, which I do still have a huge soft spot for and am just so glad it wasn't Dear Evan Hansen. My era also got Tina & Amy as the weekend update anchors, so, young millenials rule. We got literacy AND iPods babeeey!

Anyway, Wicked is up there!

Always has been! Heard the soundtrack when it first hit and proceeded to force every single girl at dance camp to put on a Defying Gravity show (it went over very well we lifted a girl into the air at the end and everyone who didn't get to be lifted was soooo jealous because dance politique is enforced so brutally at camp it's inescapable) but thankfully was talked out of doing a slapdash lip sync years later to What Is This Feeling... with my bunkie at Brown Ledge by our much cooler Junior Counselor who correctly pointed out that all the fun we were having was not going to translate to the audience enjoying it. And she was correct!

Anyway, I was so so so grateful when, on a trip to visit my moms then-boyfriend who lived in Hauppauge, we snagged second row spit-zone tickets to see it.

I left floating on air I had never wanted to become a dancer more I just wanted to be part of productions and twirl and be twirled and the staging was so elaborate (even thought I'm typically not a steampunk gal) and the actresses were SO good (pretty sure I got Stefanie J. Block as my Elphaba which like – I had no idea at the time just how lucky I was) and I was obsessed with Fiyero's line delivery of "Let the green girl go." and and and it was just perfect and it remains perfect (and stupidly expensive) and I love it so much and it's forever a Top 5 and you just...you never forget your first love.

So it shouldn't surprise me that I've gone to see the movie seven times, and yet!

To be fair/accurate, I've only stayed for the entire movie twice. The last two times I've left after Popular, even.

(I got the Regal crown app so it's basically free to go and I have no impulse control and a good amount of time on my hands these days!)

And my review?

It is soooo watchable.

Like, it's Wicked! Wicked fucking rules!!!! Stephen Schwartz & co. really Did That all those years ago! Holds up!

But um. Well. How do I put this.

I don't think it's a movie.

It's half a movie. A movie that will be close to six hours total when it's all released. And that, to me, is more of a miniseries that got a theatrical release? Like not to nitpick but it's just not a standalone Film and therefore it is...something else.

I just don't know if ending a movie halfway through the narrative arcs of the characters allows it to stand on its own legs. There will be people who never see pt. 2, and the story of the first half isn't really...a story? Like it kind of is, but 3/4 of the movie is set up and the last 1/4 is like a mini-narrative about overcoming your past desires when you get new information that changes your perspective/undoes the hero worship.

Like we're just getting to the good stuff and bam!

To Be Continued.

But if that's where the story actually ended, that would be a bad story. Lackluster! I don't think that it would feel like a complete viewing experience.

The first time I went I dragged my best friend who isn't like averse to musicals but certainly doesn't seek them out. (Shoutout to her for coming to multiple shows as well as this movie this year, it's been really fun and I've really appreciated it!) So after the movie was over, I was talking about act ii and revealed that Fiyero becomes The Scarecrow and like, she was really taken aback. And of course she was! That is NOT setup. (It's playfully foreshadowed in the lyrics to certain songs but like, it's a huge leap because Act II has always had its critics for the tonal dissonance from the first act.)

(Also, I hate the staging of most of the songs but I really take umbrage with how they paced Defying Gravity it takes like twenty minutes it is shocking how constantly it interrupts its own momentum at critical points and this isn't like a "oh I've heard the broadway soundtrack too many times and am too used to those beats" audiences have groaned when the music stops after the window thing in multiple showings!)

Anyway, my other review of this movie?

Ethan Slater jumpscare.

He's fine in the movie actually I think he does well with the material he's given.

But every shot of him is so over pronounced? Idk they have him literally scare Glinda as his intro (and, because of the relationship the actors have, every audience I've been in has had a Reaction) and then he didn't get a rewrite so he's still a stalkery character with few redeeming qualities and that's always been the role and it's always been tough but I do think the public perception is adding to the vitriol!

I saw him in Spamalot this year and like, he's very talented. I don't think he's not! I think the choreo that he and Nessa do is actually the only improvement the movie choreo makes over the show, and yet in this moment they give him a really dumb move to do and again, if this movie is a standalone movie, what's this dudes deal? He just kinda sucks and then looks scared at the end?

Oh, he becomes THEE Tin Man???? Wild! No setup for that whatsoever!

Bowen Yang meanwhile IS the people's princess. Every single audience has laughed the loudest at his little ad-libs ("We need a pastry!") and the way he says "sooo joyful" to Elphaba is the only time I find the bullying that takes place legit.

Okay, let's do this in a list.

Here's what I really like about Wicked pt. 1:

• Use of the Wizard of Oz font
• The fucking Elphie effigy is sooooo intense I love it every time it rolls into frame it's SO dramatic and exactly what I want to have heightened by the movie production
• The performances! I really think everyone is really well suited for their role even if I think some of the directors choices are not always giving them their best chance to show it to us!
• The massive stages and sets! The flower fields look incredible!
• Fiyero's horse being blue
• Dr. Dils! A huge improvement over the stage counterpart!
• Actually the added meet cute between Fiyero and Elphaba is good and the way J. Bailey gets off that horse is so stupid in the suavest way I love it he should get a special Golden Globe for that alone
• Glinda's luggage – the pink boat, the stacks of travel cases, and I love how every box has another layer inside of it that then pops out a little display of something that kind of set decoration is my SHIT I love how they really went for it and gave her pearl hangers and parasols

Things I have mixed feelings on:

• The uniforms and the fact that the leads just...don't wear them.
• Idina & Kristen's cameos. I thought they were great and touching and lovely and went on entirely too long. Though at my second viewing someone left and came back halfway through the scene and they gasped when they saw them and it was really cute so it's for The Fans but also like...it is a movie? If they had cut the part of them interacting with Ari & Cynthia I don't think I would have minded it nearly as much. Love the costumes tho!
• The "live singing" emphasis idk it works for the girlies it works for but leaves a lot of the cast kind of floundering and I just think we shouldn't treat pre-recording like it's bad (or, for that matter, DUBBING!) it feels a little "Natalie Portman did all of her own dancing in Black Swan" awards-baity and I just don't think they need that! I think it's leftover Tom Hooper influence and that dude ruined the two musicals he was in charge of so lets leave that tendency behind!

Things I did not like:

• No emerald glasses in the emerald city??? but it's also not green? Pick one!
• Yellow brick road scene. Dumb!
• The Cambridge Satchel bags all the Shiz students had they looked Too New and I just hate that shape in general and while I do think it goes I just find them unnecessarily distracting.
• The staging of most of the performances because they were bad, boring, mixed in bizarre CGI, and didn't create movement that carried me into the number. The singing is so good (or so bad, no in between, you know who they are) and the staging lets it down so hard. The Wizard and I is annoying because the behind the scenes dance is better! The weird Mount Rushmore Jeff Goldblum head and the Chihuly glass mobiles and the inexplicable dead wheat field she runs through like I get people online trying to defend it as part of the plot but when we, the audience, are introduced to Shiz via a river & overhead shots that include lush poppy gardens, and later when she runs after Dr. Dils it's all foliage so it just doesn't feel like a real place but ALSO the pacing warnings come early when they have her do a weird fly/leap thing and STOP THE MUSIC to do it!
• The dancing.

And oooooh I want to be on board with the dancing. But the reason that the only scene to go viral has managed to do so is because it's the literal only time the ensemble engages in any dancing that is not abrasive to the eyeballs.

They do two pas de bourrées in a row (lovely) and then a bunch of weird jerky upper body movements but they're in sync and on rhythm so it's still pleasing! Meanwhile the outer ensemble is doing what I can best describe as Newsie knockoff choreo and WHY IS THERE SO MUCH STOMPING.

What happened to glamour??? Elegance????? WHY ARE THEY STOMPING AND JERKILY MOVING THEIR SHOULDERS LIKE THAT.

I want to see some CHAMPAGNE HANDS, PEOPLE!

Not one partner lift.

Not. A. One.

The Ozdust angers me with how little choreo is visually pleasing. (Also the intro to it feels like the Star Wars cantina scene why is there a flying squirrel playing the drums why is the frame so filled at all times with weird CGI creatures?)

There's all this weird stiff leg out to the side sweeps and like ew????

Why is Dancing Through Life NOT a partnered dance why is everyone doing all these spins with their elbows half up and again with the stomping!

That number actually encapsulates every frustration I have with the movie: there's so much THERE there and it's captured so inelegantly.

The set? Looks great! Shot weird.

The proficiency in dance? Clearly a talented bunch!

And yet its just kind of a meh final product.

A lot has been said about the lighting, but it IS bad. The part of popular where the hallways goes pink is striking because it's the first time the movie has looked as fun as it feels.

The library is a mess. The whirling circle bookcases are shot in a way that made me feel like I was playing Mario Galaxy and I get that it definitely looked cool and impressive on the day but it's too...slow or something it just doesn't translate.

(Also in the intro to the library shot you can clearly see where the prop books are sticking out for the actors to grab which made me too aware that all the other ones were fake and that just feels like a failure of filmmaking because it took me out of the film entirely!)

Fiyero opening books with his feet and walking on them is weird, he's such a good dancer and clearly has gymnastic ability and the best they get is the shot of him going under the ladder and pulling himself up.

I rarely question if music is diegetic while watching a musical but I couldn't stop with this one. There's so much interaction, Elphie literally leaves the library to go study, they added dialogue to Nessa explaining Baq asking her out but it's just literally the same lines she's about to sing?

Why!

No one looks like they're having fun dancing! They all look very concentrated because the movements aren't flowy! And I get that dance has moved towards being so overly impressive because there is so much innovation, but I just want to see something beautiful. And instead I got Stomp! @ Shiz.

(NOT A SINGLE COORDINATED PARTNER LIFT JON???? NOT ONE????)

The dances themselves don't look fun and I learned three just to make sure I wasn't like missing something when it came to the movements and like, nah it doesn't feel good there's very little satisfaction in the choreo itself, which is obfuscated a little by the clompiness because you experience something akin to Hitting The Beat but really you're creating a second beat and it's a faux fleeting feeling.

I will say though, Glinda doesn't remember what the libary is called when she's giving the tour ("The book place. There's a collection somewhere of rare books. And some medium rare as well.") and later in One Short Day when Elphie says "libraries" she lights up and it's really delightful I do think Ariana did an INCREDIBLE job and honestly pt. 1/act i is always kind of Glinda's show but I have a feeling she might take the second act as well. It's her dream role and you can tell but the comedy works and she's so fucking talented and if you're going to be a try-hard like that's fucking awesome thank you so much for trying so hard it really paid off the camera loves her and she made Broadway jokes new & funny again.

The movie is hampered by it's dedication to preserving the stage show. There's no reason for this two part movie to open with the flashback. I get why it does, but they added the scene with the kids, so we don't need it to be there. The filmmakers might have thought it unfathomable, but from a two part story perspective, it's just weird!

If the stage show existed in an accessible pro-shot, I don't think fealty would have been so highly ranked on the importance list. But there isn't there's just one million "slime tutorials" and rips of every single Defying Gravity riff.

So we don't get that! We don't get accessible Broadway which is so stupid and everyone needs to start getting the Sondheim PBS pro-shot clause in all of their contracts!!! LISTEN TO PATTI LUPONE! Theatre is for the PEOPLE and if we continue to relegate it to New York City (and mount jukebox musicals instead of allowing original IP to develop an audience) we will lose a huge part of the connective tissue that theatre can and does provide.

Also, go see a local show!!! Go support the high school or regional theatre in your town! Worried it'll be bad? Take an edible! Surely you won't have a bad time at a musical if you have taken an edible!

Am I doing okay? No! I've seen Wicked seven times.

It's become my emotional support movie. Bad mood? Don't worry, there's probably a showing happening within the next hour and I can make it to like 5 theatres in that time! It's Broadway on tap!

Wicked is a Musicals Musical. It's so classic. The plot could have probably used some polishing and the bullying feels like it's out of a fucking Zemeckis movie, but the songs really are That Girl.

It's fun to see everyone discover why Glinda/Elphie are the only ship to make it out of that show and idk I think the Fiyero/Galinda (with a guh) stuff is the a v clear portrayal of the pitfalls of HetComp!

Also, The Wizard of Oz is an American fairytale. A whole new generation of children will now grow up with their first fear being the flying monkeys!

The movies that used to play on TV every year are cemented in the psyche of this nation. And there are only two of them! The other will play in a weeks time on Christmas Eve and it's the movie my family literally put on in order to fall asleep but I sure do love the gloved hand revealing the credits oh you want the moon, Mary????

And Wicked is a fun addition to the canon of Oz! (The actual book it's based on is weird but hey, kind of funny that we are once again experiencing the cycle of people reading the frankly bizarre fanfiction that mostly shares names with the stage adaptation!)

For a three hour movie, it moves. If you have to pee I recommend: I'm Not That Girl or Sentimental Man. If you have to pee at all by Sentimental Man GO omg you will NOT make it through the nine year long Defying Gravity hot air balloon bullshit sequence that follows.

The first 1.5 hours though is perfect and I love it and it's pure feel good comfort kind of shit so it all averages out to a healthy 8.5/10!

I'm totally fine with the performance nominations but critics have GOT to get a grip re: the cinemetography noms. Also, the editing is bad and I think when both parts come out we're going to get some REALLY good fan edits that create a single movie and I'm really excited for that! Just like, shots linger too long. A good 15 minutes could be saved if they cut like seconds earlier in so many transitions.

Anyway I love it go see it have fun!!!!

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