‘Wicked’ is Overstuffed and Undercooked
Cynthia Erivo's impassioned performance is the most real thing in the artificial Oz of Jon M. Chu's CGI-heavy "Wicked."
Everything that’s popular won’t be popular with everyone. That’s one of many lessons learned in the musical Wicked by the self-proclaimed princess of “Popular,” Galinda, and it applies to people, places, films, film reviews, and the musical Wicked.
Over the course of the show’s journey through Oz, Galinda eventually becomes Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, sworn foe of the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, formerly her friend.
The Tony-winning tale of their rivalry turned friendship turned feud, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman, adapts the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire (itself a riff on the Oz characters created by L. Frank Baum, and made iconic in the 1939 MGM musical) into a teenage fantasy-romance promoting tolerance, individuality, and female empowerment.
Opening on Broadway in 2003, the show is still running, the national tour and international productions still sell out, and the fanbase is fervently anticipating the big-budget film adaptation directed by Jon M. Chu (In the Heights), starring Cynthia Erivo as green-skinned outcast Elphaba and Ariana Grande as bubbly blonde Glinda, who meet as classmates at Shiz University. The property’s enduring popularity can’t be denied.
But to those of us who prefer the adult tone and political complexity of Maguire’s novel, or have little affinity for Schwartz’s Disneyfied score, Wicked is an okay musical, and Chu’s visual effects-driven spectacle does little to enhance the experience.
One major step in the right direction, though, is the casting of Erivo, the film’s most special effect, as rising rebel Elphaba.
The Tony, Emmy, and Grammy-winning performer’s voice soars through big-belting numbers like “The Wizard and I,” girded by her achingly sincere expression of Elphaba’s sheer unpopularity.
Born a shocking shade of pea, poor Elphie has been ridiculed and shunned her entire life, treated abominably by her father Frexpar (Andy Nyman), the Governor of Munchkinland, and generally humbled into just quietly caring for favored younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode).
Yet, she possesses an inner fire that Erivo conveys with the glint in her eyes and the set of her jaw. It courses through her in those moments Elphaba manifests her power in violent outbursts of magic. Her screen presence pushes through the convincing green makeup, contacts, and confining costumes, and her ease in the role results in Elphaba seeming like the realest gal in the fantasyland of Oz, as opposed to the shallow folk who recoil in horror every time she dares take up space.
The constant horrified gasps and stares make the musical’s point that wicked witches might be born, or cruelly made by a world that gives them nothing to respond to but scorn. The aghast reactions to Elphaba’s uniqueness are also played as a gag — one that gets played out. “Oh, my god, she’s green!” Yes, she is, for the fifteenth time.
Of course, padding is necessary when you’re turning a two-and-a-half-hour stage musical into two two-and-a-half-hour films.
For Part 1, let’s say the most entertaining “(Gasp!) You’re green!” belongs to Ariana Grande, former child actor and current Grammy-winning, multi-platinum recording artist, portraying Galinda.
Grande (credited onscreen by birth name Grande-Butera) gives a more mannered performance in what is, as written by Holzman and Dana Fox, a pretty affected character, exemplified by the comically extravagant way Galinda tosses her hair. A natural and skilled comedienne, Grande can make hair flips funny, but that gag, too, gets worn out, as Part 1 overbakes its setup of Galinda and Elphaba’s budding friendship, and ensuing rivalry over dashing classmate Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey).
Bailey looks every bit like the fairy-tale prince but also not like a college student. And how old are these students supposed to be, anyway? Because the playground-style bullying, often perpetrated with bitchy asides from Shiz U. mean girls Pfannee (Bowen Yang) and ShenShen (Bronwyn James), reads as the behavior of 13-year-olds. And the love triangle is totally PG, with physical attraction barely even implied.
However, no one onscreen projects the age these kids are acting, so the romance feels half-hearted, especially compared to the persuasive depth of Elphaba and Galinda’s friendship. A subplot about shadowy oppressive powers in Oz systematically silencing the land’s intelligent, talking animals also feels half-hearted, though Peter Dinklage’s voice acting as the students’ kindly goat professor Dr. Dillamond sells the CGI character.
Dillamond is one of several fully CGI characters in a world where it seems every vista and landscape has been augmented by visual effects. Even the real locations don’t look real, so adorned in computer-generated color and embellishment.
Wicked‘s version of Oz’s famous flying monkeys look real enough to have garnered frightened screams from a few under-eight-year-olds attending the press screening. However, to adult eyes, these cartoon chimpanzees with incongruous tails pale in comparison to the flesh-and-blood creatures who terrorized Oz, and audiences, way back when.
Wicked (★★☆☆☆) is rated PG, and is playing in theaters nationwide. Visit www.fandango.com.
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