Wicked (2024)

And they were roommates

Imagine me trying, through sheer force of will like Tim Robinson in I Think You Should Leave, to push this into “Good” territory. I want to like it, damn it! So desperately! It’s a big colorful high budget musical, the pink-green sensation of 2024! More big-budget movies should pursue the ideals of “color” and “music.”

And, truthfully, parts of Wicked are quite effective. Both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are delightful. It’s tough to imagine anyone could have played G(a)linda in 2024 better than Grande, whom people sometimes forget had her breakthrough as a tenured Nickelodeon sitcom star. She is funny and charismatic, evoking that specific Kristin Chenoweth cute-pompousness without feeling like a cheap imitation. And, of course, she’s Ariana Grande and can sing the shit out of showtunes. Erivo is a great complement, more interior and gentle, her voice a frisson-inducing revelation every single time she gets to wield it. Their different approaches work in harmony, and their scenes together are the movie’s best.

Whenever the movie decides to be fun, it is indeed a pretty good time. That’s when they’re singing and dancing in cool settings, of course. This is not often enough. There’s a respectable number of songs on the soundtrack (11), but they’re spread across an egregious runtime, and many of them are chopped up like Jon Chu wanted to make sure we didn’t smile too much. Why is it that dime store Disney Channel and Disney+ musicals are more fearless with kinetic choreography and staging than a tentpole by the guy who cut his chops in the Step Up franchise?

Alas; the idiotic Oz fan fiction half-story and abominable runtime are just outright movie-ruining. The script is a piece of dear old Shiz. Its narrative is a watery Harry Potter knockoff with inane and confusing lore despite the script’s concerted effort to over-explain it for minutes at a time. On stage, the story has an abstraction and glaze of irony that prevents it from becoming too self-serious. The two racism allegories are, respectively, dumb (Green skin) and dumber (animals aren’t human… ok?). The literalism and stone-faced tone we get here just don’t satisfy.

Chu and adapting writers Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox assume that I care about Oz iconography way more than I do… way more than I can imagine anyone caring, in fact. My wife pointed out that the movie is basically the Surf Dracula meme in movie form.

And as much as I enjoy the two leads, the acting is not perfect across the board, either: Michelle Yeoh is outright bad, and Jeff Goldblum’s low energy would be a problem if his natural demeanor weren’t a perfect fit for the Wizard.

But perhaps the film’s biggest sin is its visual profile and construction. Chu’s instincts are just way off, to my eyes, haphazardly placing and moving the camera with no real aims at composition. The movie’s cinematography is bafflingly dim and ugly for long stretches. It does not befit how colorful the production is. The interesting sets and terrific costumes are short-circuited with blinding backlights and lens flares, plus distressingly mellow color grading. Ah yes, well done; such a great tribute to The Wizard of Oz, a famously desaturated piece of cinema.

The production is strong enough, and the colorful stretches are pleasing enough, that I guess it’s better-produced and more fun to look at than your average 2020s blockbuster, so, hooray?

All I’m really asking is for the movie to have some damn fun! Make it sillier and dancier. Give me more moments like the bizarre silent pantomime where Grande and Erivo enact various versions of the Arrested Development chicken dance — an absurd and weirdly effective moment. That’s what I want! “Absurd and weirdly effective!” That should have been your damn mantra, tattooed across your forehead, Wicked.

I guess I resentfully quasi-like it similar to how I quasi-liked Barbie last year — swept away in a colorful mess, even if almost all of my specific bits of feedback are delivered with grumbles. But Barbie at least had awareness of its main objectives. I maybe could have given Barbie a thumbs down like I’m about to Wicked. I’m tempted to go even lower in this rating, quite honestly. But so long as these movie sensations continue to be about something other than whether the one masked guy can punch the other masked guy hard enough to save the universe, I’ll try not to complain.

Is It Good?

Nearly Good (4/8)

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Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.