Cinema Review: Wicked (2024)
Directed by Jon M. Chu
Screenplay by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox
Based on the musical, Wicked by Stephen Schwartz & Winnie Holzman
and novel by Gregory Maguire.
Produced by Marc Platt and David Stone
Main Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande-Buter, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum etc.
Cinematography by Alice Brooks
Edited by Myron Kerstein
Music by John Powell (score) and Stephen Schwartz (score and songs)
*** MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***
I truly believe my love of cinema began when I was aged five. Or was it six? Picture the scene. Christmas Day circa 1976 and the living room of a Battersea tower block. A television emits a classic musical fantasy called The Wizard of Oz (1939). Shades of grey with a flickering light and shadow, drew me into its spell. I sat wide-eyed, cradled by the screen’s soft glow, unaware that something wondrous lay just beyond the monochrome.
And then it happened—like a magician’s flourish, the black and white world I had known melted away. Dorothy opened that door, and the screen burst into life, a kaleidoscope of impossible hues. Emerald greens, ruby reds, a yellow road that glowed with the promise of adventure. My eyes widened. Hang on! It was black and white and NOW the images are in colour! This was magic. This was film. This was Oz!
Forty-eight years later and back to the present. In 2024, I am sat in the cinema intrigued to watch the musical prequel, Wicked (2024). Based on a successful novel, then a spectacularly successful stage musical and now a big-budget Christmas cinema extravaganza indulgently split into a two-parter, does Wicked (2024) capture the cinematic sorcery I experienced in my youth? Of course it possibly cannot live up to my warm and fuzzy childhood memories, but it is a well-crafted, superbly choreographed and energetically performed Hollywood product with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on majestic form.
The film, based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, is a brilliant twist on the “what if” storytelling lens—a speculative reimagining that turns a villain into a deeply human, complex protagonist. The novel takes the flat archetype of the Wicked Witch and asks: What if we misunderstood her? What if the “wickedness” she’s condemned for is not inherent, but the result of a life shaped by prejudice, politics, and pain? Indeed, the journey of Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) powerfully drives the story, and in some fashion Wicked (2024) works brilliantly as a Breaking Bad-meets-Mean Girls-type-rites-of-passage musical.
Unfortunately, such strong narrative bones with weighty themes of identity, morality, and the price of power are adorned in a dazzling, over-the-top spectacle. While its core narrative explores profound questions about destiny and the nature of “wickedness,” these ideas often get buried under an excessive parade of well-designed production numbers that stretch the running time and tested one’s patience. The powerful emotional arcs of Elphaba and Glinda, rich with potential, are interrupted by TOO MANY songs that (Dancing Through Life is one such culprit), while entertaining in isolation, often feel like detours from the story’s heart.
By the final curtain, the spectacular musical embellishments, though undeniably crowd-pleasing, can leave the story feeling bloated. I am probably the wrong demographic for the production, given the cinema was full of children and parents. So, while there is much to enjoy in comparison with the original film’s genius, notably the invention of the flying monkeys, Wicked (2024), for all its glitter and showmanship, finds the greedy desire for a two-parter ultimately draining Oz of pace and magic.
The Cinema Fix presents 
Great review Paul 🙂 Your assessment sounds insightful even though I have not seen the film yet 🙂 I always wonder how British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes) would have helmed it, even though Wicked was made long after they died?
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Thanks John. I’m sure Powell and Pressburger would’ve made something even darker and more visually stunning.
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I hear that Paul 🙂 Not only Peeping Tom (though Pressburger had no involvement in that), but If you watch Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, you will see that based on those films alone, they would have given this version of Wicked something poetic. How about Dennis Potter’s Wicked? 🙂 Speaking of which, though you probably knew this already, on that recent blog entry of mine, I included a Terence Davies film, which in this case was The Long Day Closes. He is another British great who will be missed. I do not know If you clicked on all of those links, but If you did, they must have brought joy to you cause a lot of cinephiles have agreed that whenever Terence Davies talks about films, he has such a soothing voice. When that 1992 episode of The South Bank Show first aired, their was a sequence that featured Davies lip-syncing to Doris Day and If today’s generation saw that, they would undoubtedly say that he was doing TikTok before TikTok. Personally, I do not see it that way, but it is an interestng thought nonetheless 🙂 Thoughts? 🙂
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Absolutely agree, John. Anything Powell/Pressburger and Dennis Potter created was thrilling and powerful.
I’m not the biggest connoisseur of Terence Davies work, although I have seen his films and he is a masterly director. For British cinema, I generally lean (no pun intended) to the grittier work of Alan Clarke, Ken Loach and Shane Meadows. I am also a big fan of Mike Leigh’s social comedies and character studies.
Having said that The Long Day Closes is beautiful if fragmented. The House of Mirth is brilliant filmmaking too. 🎥😀
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Glad to hear it Paul 🙂
As you could probably tell, I am a huge fan of Terence Davies, but then again I am also a huge fan of your favorites too 🙂 In this case, you mention Alan Clarke, Ken Loach, Shane Meadows and Mike Leigh 🙂 Also, great directors 🙂 I am aware that we have mentioned Powell/Pressburger, Potter (though he is not a director), Ken Russell and Nicolas Roeg dozens of times on here 🙂 I bet Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) is a huge fan of all of them too 🙂
Speaking of which, did you know that before not only his film career, but also before he created the cult television comedy Spaced, Wright directed episodes of other programs and one of them was an old episode of the female comedy duo French and Saunders 🙂 I think it was the Titanic spoof 🙂 Interesting isn’t it? 🙂
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Hi John, thanks for the positive comment. Somehow this was in WordPress spam so sorry for the delay in responding. Oh, yes I have followed Edgar Wright’s career with great interest. He actually used to work at Raindance in London, where I worked for a couple of years recently. Although he was there in the late 1980s / early 1990s with founder Elliot Grove at the very start. I’d be very keen to watch his very first film, A Fistful of Fingers. I imagine it is available somewhere 🙂 hope you are having a good holiday.
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