Wicked, Wicked..Jungle is Massive

The Wicked musical has grossed a piddly $6 billion since its opening in 2003 so Universal Studios have decided to raise some extra cash with this film adaptation. Well, this and next years next years adaptation since despite no "part 1" in the title we only get half the story here. Duplicitous marketing aside, splitting proceedings in half seems to have been the savvy move.

For the uninitiated, Wicked is the story of The Wicked Witch of the West, giving her a backstory and retelling The Wizard of Oz from her point of view. Here, she is called Elphaba and this first film tells the story of her time at Shiz University, her frosty then friendly relationship with future good witch Glinda and encounter with The Wizard that leads to her being branded a villain. Despite only covering half the material this film is longer than the entire musical but it seems like that couldn't be helped. Movie audiences aren't accustomed to songs driving the plot so connective tissue has to be added to make the story hang together, meanwhile all the songs still have to be there otherwise there's no real point in it existing. It doesn't feel like anything superfluous has been added in the name of stretching to multiple instalments and the structure allows the film to end on the musical's showstopper song. It is a bit of a strange beast though; part prequel to beloved classic, part bombastic musical, part Disney Channel school drama.

No expense has been spared in bringing the world of Oz to life and director Jon M. Chu has taken cues from the 1939 classic with massive sets and swathes of dancers giving the set piece songs an epic feel. The grand spectacle makes up the difference from losing the live element and is backed up with equally large performances. Broadway star Cynthia Erivo puts in a towering turn as Elphaba (a role she has never played on stage). Her singing is as commanding as you would expect and from the moment she clomps onto the screen she imbues the not so wicked witch with a physicality and dignified defiance that makes you believe she really could stand up to the entire world. Ariana Grande is surprisingly effective as ambitious possible mean girl Glinda, somewhat in the shadow of Erivo but then that's the point. With likes of Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and cameos from some of the original Broadway performers, the supporting cast is stacked.

With a focus on bringing the musical to the screen some of the plot is a little underdeveloped. There's an attempt to portray political turmoil in Oz via talking animals losing their rights but given we are only being introduced to the world we don't know how big a departure from the norm this is or how recently things have changed. Much of the school drama relies on people being REALLY hung up on the fact the protagonist is green. Sure, racism is dumb but the sheer disbelief feels a bit over the top in a world with talking animals. The fact Elphaba's sister Nessarose sole character purpose is to be "person in a wheelchair" is a little uncomfortable.

Overall though, Wicked is a fun time and I can't imagine fans of the musical could have expected a film adaptation to be much better than this. Expect sing along showings to be in cinemas for quite some time.

7 rejecting the force by which a body draws objects to its centre out of 10.

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