Just to let everyone know I have very little experience or knowledge about the original Broadway play and up until a couple weeks ago when the reviews and online buzz started, I was absolutely dreading seeing this adaptation. While I'm not as head over heels in love with Wicked as a majority of audiences already are, it was a very pleasant surprise and it's hard to deny how well made it is as a whole. This is probably Jon M. Chu's finest work as a director, and you can tell he was the absolute perfect guy for the job because he brings this world beautifully to life.

This is going to rack up a ton of technical nominations at the Oscars, and it honestly might even put up a good fight to win most of them. The costumes, the sets, the makeup, the hairstyling, and the visuals are all pretty magnificent and you can tell how much love, and care went into everything onscreen. I probably wouldn't listen to any of these songs in my free time, but I can't commend the musical numbers enough as there absolutely dazzling, and magical while feeling truly cinematic in every sense of the word with some crazy good camerawork. I don't want to sound hyperbolic but some of the musical numbers nearly took my breath away especially any one featuring Cynthia Erivo.

But honestly the main reason to see this, and easily the two best things about it are the performances and singing talents from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. They’re a perfect match and play off each other wonderfully while both delivering two very different but equally excellent performances. Erivo gets the more emotional/darker role of the two and shows a very vulnerable side to her character which makes you connect to her even more, while Grande is just a ton of fun and perfectly captures the energy of Glinda in such a likeable and charming fashion. I thought Oscar talk for Grande’s performance was kind of crazy at first but here I am hoping she gets nominated. The supporting cast isn’t in it as much as you might think but Jonathan Bailey is beyond charming, and Peter Dinklage might be the best character in the whole film. Always nice to see Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh pop up but they aren’t really given all that much to do and almost feel like they could’ve been played by anyone.

I truly wanted to love this, and while I did enjoy it much more than I thought I would, this is far from perfect and has its fair share of issues with a lot of them coming back to the length of the film. I’m sorry but this didn’t need to be 2 hours and 40 minutes long and it feels pretty bloated in the middle section of with some scenes being very stretched out or unnecessary. The opening 10-15 minutes are rough and really struggle to get this story going properly too. It stands on its own two feet as an individual story fairly well, but it does suffer from some common Part 1 issues, and it did have me wondering if this necessarily needed to be split into two parts which we’ll find out next year. Had this cut 20-30 minutes out and had a bit better pacing, I probably would’ve loved this.

But in the end Wicked is still a film I greatly appreciate and definitely can understand why people are absolutely loving. I can’t speak for the play itself, but this feels like a faithful and worthy adaptation that will please longstanding fans while gaining a whole bunch of new ones. I can’t say it’s perfect, but it was so much better than I ever could’ve guessed and actually has me excited to see how this story concludes next year with Part 2. This isn’t something I can see myself rewatching all that much if ever, but it deserves the massive success its about to have.