The two hours and forty minutes of Wicked will entertain most fans of Wizard Of Oz creator L. Frank Baum’s characters… so much so that it could have been five hours long, and this film would captivate still.
Where director Sam Raimi’s 2013 Oz the Great and Powerful (James Franco, Rachel Weisz) was fun for ten minutes, did good box office, but was unmemorable, director Jon Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) hits the audience marvelously the moment the film opens – and just escalates – returning us to Oz in a way no film has done since the 1939 MGM classic most of the planet knows and loves. That’s 85 years if you are counting. Not Michael Jackson and Diana Ross in 1978’s The Wiz, not Disney’s 1985 Return to Oz, not the 2007 TV mini-series Tin Man, the 2011 TV series The Witches of Oz, and a plethora of animated stories. Many that tried, and many that failed until American novelist Gregory Maguire started his series of books…and the eventual stage play of his Wicked.
With Maguire’s vision, and director Chu’s interpretation – along with terrific acting, we finally return to the real Oz created by Judy Garland’s immortal classic.
The sets are vivid and beautiful, and for those not fond of musicals, remember, the original Wizard of Oz was a musical that didn’t feel like a musical, and the same goes for Wicked. It’s a story with music in it. Jeff Goldblum is very special as the Wizard and the effects in the Wizard’s lair are what we want and what we who treasure the original film need.
But for this critic it is the chance to go back to a world that we, as children, would watch again and again, year after year, as the film graced the TV screen of the generations of kids from the 1950s to today. Wizard of Oz became a TV institution with only Mary Martin’s Peter Pan (1960) causing similar excitement, but not enduring as it was basically a play put on television. That Peter Pan was fun for kids growing up in the 60s, but Oz, as a television feature, created memories. Jon Chu’s direction and emphasis on making it colorful and real brings back those memories in a big way, and in a good way. He’s finally brought us back to Oz in a film that will make those who love the 1939 classic feel right at home.
Jon M. Chu directed the PG “Wicked,” which stars Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh and Jonathan Bailey.
