Wicked

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande

I will admit that I was not predisposed to enjoy Jon M. Chu's film version of Wicked, but I will cop to finding the end product to be watchable. I found Gregory Maguire's source novel to be a interesting twist on the Baum universe. The musical, however, I consider a slog, chiefly due to Stephen Schwartz's pedestrian score. The teacher in charge of the glee club at my children's school was a fan and, thus, I was forced to hear numbers from it annually for about a decade. The tunes never have won me over. Schwartz displayed little melodic range in Godspell, but the rah-rah energy of that score and youthful vigor of the cast made for a palatable evening when I saw it on the stage in 1973 or so. Besides Wicked, Schwartz followed up Godspell with Pippin and a number of dreary songs for DreamWorks animation features. I'm not going to enumerate his flops. The number of memorable tunes he has written are scant. Of the tunes for Wicked, the only one I can remember is "Popular" and that is probably due to its ubiquity.     

I'm also not a big fan of director Jon M. Chu's work, though I will admit that his fondness for bold color schemes makes him a pretty good fit for this film. That said, the enormity of this production does not make it a good opportunity for the personal vision projects that this aging auteurist craves. The film bogs down in its expositional and transitional scenes. The choreography of the dance sequences is mediocre and Chu's camera placement for these sequences is worse. Wicked, especially because of its boarding school sequences, resembles the lesser Harry Potter films in that it seems an advertisement for a future theme park rather than a fitting setting for a fantastical story. Chu, like Chris Columbus before him, shoots the sets nicely, but at the expense of his players. The supporting players are fairly anonymous because of this with the exception of Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard. Michelle Yeoh and Peter Dinklage's attempts to vocalize are mercifully brief.

So what the heck did you like about this film, Biff. Chiefly, the casting of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. They warble nicely and have a better chemistry together than with their potential romantic interests. Ms. Grande is a particularly good choice for the vain and bubble headed Glinda. I also liked the inclusion of Wicked alumni Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel in the show within a show sequence that gives us some backstory. A nice touch for fans of Wicked. I'm not one, but this film version could have been a lot worse.