Oli’s review published on Letterboxd:
Glinda the good? She may get redeemed later on but she's isn't half one monumental bitch here.
I'm aware I'm not the target audience for this film, I've never seen the stage version or read the book it was adapted from and it's probably been a decade since I watched the original film. The Musical genre just really isn't my cup of tea... but most of the time if the songs are enjoyable and the narrative is engaging I'm usually pretty easy to win over. And this film just manages to tip the scale into the positive..although it was a close call.
One of the main issues is with exception of a few songs that felt well cherographed to there environments such as Popular or Defying Gravity, the rest feel surprisingly out of place and unnecessary. They mostly just involve a character aimlessly wandering around until they find the next visual metaphor to sing about. The worst offenders however are all the half-songs that people just randomly sing mid conversations, there only purpose seems to be to pad the runtime and remind you this is still a musical.
And It's already been widely criticised but this film is also distinctly lacking in the vibrency that you'd expect from the magical world of Oz. Even in those big musical numbers the lighting and colour grading is done in a way that makes it feel like you're watching a behind the scenes production video. And while I don't think it's as bad as some have said it does heavily spoil the immersion, where instead of it being a fully realised world you're fully aware you're watching actors on a sound stage.
Maybe I'm just being too cynical or the fact that it's still only a part 1 but I also don't get the point of what this film was going for narratively. You get Elphaba's backstory pretty early on and then the film just stagnates until she finally makes the trip to the Emerald City, it actually feels like the film ends just as it started building up a momentum. It also suffers from unnecessary prequel syndrome, constantly giving explanations and backstory to things nobody asked for which is a big reason why this mammoth runtime feels so noticeable.
Despite that long list of flaws it's not all bad, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are perfectly cast and have great chemistry together and the film shines when it's just focused on those two and thier relationship. And despite the lighting the production design also looks fantastic, you can tell alot of love went into creating all the different colourful sets and the hardwork really paid off.
I'm just not sure how invested I am for Part 2 as I can already kind of predict where it's heading (I already have a pretty good guess who Elphabas father is), I just hope it doesn't feel as bloated as part 1 and the songs are alot more engaging
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