frederik_w’s review published on Letterboxd:
the wizard of oz isn't anywhere near the cultural touchstone here in germany that it seems to be over in the states, and i never had any big attachment to it. however, it has proven itself to be the quintessential american fairytale, not just because of its recognizable characters and setting, but because it embodies core american values in a near-universal way. the wizard turns out to be a fraud, and the travelers have had what they wish for inside them all along -- heart, courage, brains and a strong tether to the homeland. maybe it's because ford's the searchers is still on my mind, but there is certainly a solid case to be made for the wizard of oz being an embodiment of the myth of the frontier and thus the hour of the nation's birth: go forth in a strange land, violently drive out the 'other', build the new society on the core values that you've brought with you all along. it's interesting, then, that wicked acts as such a blatant anti-oz counterbalance, giving the setting and characters more depth while also proposing oz itself as a totalitarian regime with a fraud for a leader and a founding myth based on the demonisation of the 'other', be it animals or wicked witches.
the point is that while i respect the wizard of oz and certainly admire the technicolor brilliance of the 1939 adaptation, it's not a story i have much use for in any meaningful way and one that i find much more interesting in the contexts in which it is frequently applied. wicked should therefore be built exactly for me, dismantling the myth of oz...in the form of a musical of all things! what's not to love?
however, it didn't manage to fully click with me. i still like it quite a bit, it is certainly a more interesting narrative than the original, and that final hour or so is absolutely fantastic -- but i spent much of the first half being unsure how i was feeling about any of it. the color grading isn't great, yes, that's the obvious critique here, but i do have to admit that it doesn't look nearly as bad on the big screen as it does in the stills you've probably seen on twitter. the main thing i couldn't get into, however, is just how much of the whole shiz university business (which takes up a lot of space!) honestly feels like a $150 million disney channel production. it's a bit too 'high school drama' and filled with obvious clichés and caricatures of archetypes. as a result, this whole section comes out very uneven, landing a lot of good comedic beats, especially coming from ariana grande's good performance, but the sincere beats -- such as the entire ozdust sequence -- just don't really work. how much of that is the fault of the stage musical and how much of it is to blame on the adaptation? as i've never seen the show, unfortunately i don't have a clue. all i know is it did not always function for me. some of the prequel-isms here are also pretty groan-inducing, with the yellow brick road sequence being the most egregious example*.
however, the movie just has so many good things going for it, and a lot of it comes from the final hour, its general premise (which is simply great in itself) and the perfect casting, which gives us two strong central performances and a jeff goldblum role that i can't imagine anyone else playing as well as he does -- seriously, whoever was in charge of casting him as the wizard, i hope you got paid handsomely.
the 'part one' of it all does hinder this at points, mostly because the side characters' arcs don't have anywhere to go yet -- moq doesn't get any real growth and fyiero is mostly there to look sexy -- but glinda and elphaba do manage to have complete arcs that end up at very good points despite this being an act 1. long story short, this has problems for sure but it's also got a lot of brilliance, and as someone entirely unfamiliar with the musical i'm honestly pretty intrigued to see where this story gets taken in part two next year. i'll be there!
p.s. 'defying gravity' does indeed go hard, i did indeed get goosbumps during the song in the movie, and it will be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future.
* the actual explanation of the yellow brick road being another connector for oz's totalitarianism, providing a very centralized system where everything traces back to the center of power ('all paths lead to the wizard') is really neat and ties into the original story in a very smart way -- it's the whole 'which color should the road be?' schtick that was pretty painful.
