So, we waited for the initial box office rush to die down a bit, then we waited to recover rom our Covid bouts, but on Monday we got ourselves to the theater to see "Wicked", the movie adaptation of the long running Broadway musical. You may have noticed that there have been a commercial or two on television leading up to the release of this movie.
I am not going to go into a long review/synopsis of this movie, but I will tell you this: It was terrific! Bright, colorful, and beautiful to look at, and wonderfully acted. Being in a <cough, cough> somewhat older demographic, I confess that I was not all that familiar with the oeuvres of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, but they were both wonderful in the lead roles of Galinda and Elphaba, respectively, and throw in performances by Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero), Michelle Yeoh (Madame Morrible). and Jeff Goldblum (The Wizard), and you've got a great cast, although I will say that this stage of his career, Goldblum mainly plays "Jeff Goldblum" in just about everything he does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Oh, and there is a musical number that features cameo appearances from two people that came as a wonderful surprise to me. Linda told me that she was aware that this was a part of the movie, but I was not and that made it all the more delightful to me.
Much will be made about the "Defying Gravity" number that closes the movie, and it was spectacular, but the number that I just found totally delightful was "Dancing Through Life". The choreography was amazing as was the visual effects and staging used throughout. In an interview I saw on the Today Show a few weeks ago, Bailey said that took five days to film that scene. It was well worth the effort. Completely delightful.
This movie is going to get a whole bunch of Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. The big question is will both Grande and Erivo receive acting nominations? I wouldn't be surprised to see Yeoh nab a supporting actress nomination, and surely Jon M. Chu will be nominated for Best Director.
One gripe though. This was only Part One of the film version of "Wicked". Commercials for this movie began during the Super Bowl in February, and the there were more commercials for this movie in the last three months than there were Bob Casey and Dave McCormick commercials leading up to the election. Trailers for it have been running in theaters all summer long, the Today Show spent an entire week in early November pimping for the movie, corporations like Target and Xfinity have built entire campaigns around it, and it was only until the week that it was released that it became known - at least to me - that this was only to be Part One of the movie, with Part Two being released next year at Thanksgiving, no doubt to similar promotional efforts. This was not playing fair with the movie going public, I believe, but what are you going to do? I just hope that I'm still alive when Part Two comes out next year.
Okay, I'm now off my soapbox. Go see this movie.
Four Stars from The Granddstander.
And a Post Script. If you wonder what The Grandstander thought about the Broadway musical "Wicked" when he saw it back in 2018, you can read that HERE
I saw Chu on the view and he said they pretty much filmed part 2 as they were filming psrt 1.
ReplyDeleteAll the more reason to be feeling "taken in." The entire movie is already in the can, so why release it in two parts a year apart, other than to bilk the ticket buyers. On the other hand, who would go to see a five hour movie?
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