There’s an urban legend – long denied by the band itself – that Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon was recorded to fit over the visuals of The Wizard of Oz, creating a trippy alternative experience known to smug muso types as ‘The Dark Side of the Rainbow’.
Even in their psychedelic Syd Barrett days, the prog legends would have been hard-pressed to record anything to match the tempo set by Jon M Chu’s high-energy repurposing of Stephen Schwartz’s Wizard of Oz origin musical.
You’d need an army of flying monkeys to find a Wicked fan with any grumbles about the results. The Crazy Rich Asians director’s screen version pops with vibrancy and energy, effervescence and sincerity, adding the odd tweak, expanding the occasional storyline, but largely visualising the musical in a way that will delight the many millions who have seen it on stage since its Broadway premiere in 2003.
And the songs – especially the ceiling-plaster-loosening Defying Gravity – are belted out via vocal cords you’d pay top dollar to hear in concert, with Cynthia Erivo and a scene-stealing Ariana Grande the powerhouse double-act at the movie’s heart: one providing steel and soul as Shiz University’s ostracised green-skinned student Elphaba; the other with a nice line in perky superficiality as Galinda, a Tracy Flick type whose manifesto for life is captured in a wittily staged Popular. Of course, they’ll grow up to become the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North respectively.
You’d need an army of flying monkeys to find a Wicked fan with a grumble about this film
The first two-thirds are Mean Girls meets Harry Potter, set in a Shiz University resembling a steampunk Venice. Catty students jostle over status, while Shiz headmistress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) provides magic classes to the select few. When the more gifted Elphaba, not Galinda, gets the call, it sets off a rivalry soon complicated by the arrival of Jonathan Bailey’s flirty, feckless prince Fiyero. As per the stage show, Elphaba’s wheelchair-bound sister Nessarose (played by disabled actress Marissa Bode) gets shortish shrift in the story.
With the exception of an over-caffeinated Loathing, where boisterousness tips into freneticism, the musical numbers are memorably staged – sometimes in the spirit of the MGM original (One Short Day), occasionally with a more modern twist (The Wizard and I). The tingling silence of Elphaba and Galdina’s ballroom dance is a delicate moment in a musical that never stands still for long.
So the hundred million dollar question: why does a stage show that’s over and done with in two hours 30 minutes require two movies over 12 months? ‘Part One’, as wily Hollywood marketing types are not calling it, clocks in at a beefy 160 minutes, ending at the point when Broadway audiences would be heading to the bar for a half-time beverage. You could hand-rear a Munchkin in that time.
The injection of the shadowy Wizard (Jeff Goldblum being very Goldblum-y) into a third act set in the Emerald City provides something of an answer. Here, Wicked turns from a coming-of-age drama into a fugitive thriller. Via a subplot involving the repression of talking animals, the dark side of Oz is revealed and Elphaba’s road to empowerment mapped out. There’s even time for a cameo that will literally blow the minds of long-time Wicked lovers.
Of course, the ‘To be continued’ inscribed on the end card will get up the nose of anyone who believes that every movie (apart from The Empire Strikes Back) should have an actual ending. Then again, when you visit a place as fun and flamboyant as this, what’s the hurry to leave?
In cinemas worldwide Nov 22.