User reviews

If you are easily wooed by good set design, CGI and 2-3 good scenes then you'll love it. If you would like any meaningful storyline look elsewhere.

Emotional connections between characters were shallow and actual plot points were treated almost as an inconvenience. Whilst the singing was of great quality, it lacked the emotive wider cast belt-outs I expect from a powerful musical. It felt to me that everyone was trying so hard to be their own oscar-winning performance they forgot to act WITH eachother.

The dance scene between Elphaba and Galinda tries hard to be a statement piece but despite Cynthia's great individual performance the chemistry between them falls short yet again.

I was led to believe this film would be full of emotion and rip-roaring acting but I'm left as disconnected as the plotlines.

I wanted to watch this since there was so much hype and ads for this movie and I heard good things about the broadway musical. Not to mention... the Wizard of Oz is one of my favourite movies of all time! This? I don't know what this was.... It felt like a bad joke. It was incredibly long and boring. Everything looked so fake and I saw no connection to the wicked witch and the good witch in the original. Ariana did at times seem like the original character which was nice. Beautiful singing but forgettable songs. Felt like it was trying to be a new Harry Potter movie? I don't get the hype! I wish Hollywood would leave the classics alone!

If you are primarily interested in movies without being a fan of the original Wicked musical or this particular IP, I would take these somewhat strangely overwhelming positive reactions with a grain of salt. It's nice to see people enthusiastic about big Hollywood extravaganza but this is far, far, very far away from a masterpiece which is so forcefully implied by many major media outlets. First of all, this being Part 1 with a running time of 160 minutes while the whole original musical was shorter than that, tells you enough about the intentions and corporate machinery behind this project.

The positive side besides perhaps 2-3 musical numbers being fun and charming are the performances from Cynthia Orivo and Ariana Grande. They have nice chemistry together and they are obviously great singers. Jonathan Bailey also has fun screen presence and I definitely wanted to see a bit more of him. Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum aren't doing that much here, typical paycheck gigs, no more and no less.

Story is fine, I guess. It has super basic messages about acceptance, being true to yourself, standing up and, and... really basic stuff without any ambiguity to it. However, the pacing is atrocious, film dragged at times and an obnoxiously pedestrian editing didn't help at all. After some time, I simply wanted it to end - again, this is Part 1, so spoilers - it won't end until November 2025.

And how are the visuals? This is one of the worst looking big studio movies I have seen in a very long time - think Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland mixed with MCU's bland colour grading and horrendous lighting that makes everything artificial, soulless and flat. It's astonishing how even the prettiest practical sets can be demolished with post-production in wrong hands. This is a movie where visual components are crucial, it should create that cinematic and magical sense of wonder - remember beautiful Technicolour vibrancy in 1939s Wizard of Oz? Well, that's replaced with the ugliest colour palette you can find in modern film.

Wicked (Part 1!) will be a hit, it's tailored to be, forced into being the ultimate crowd pleaser but the fact that such an unimaginative and borderline lazy and toothless filmmaking is so highly praised, called even a MASTERPIECE, that's the reason why mainstream film industry isn't about art, creativity or originality anymore, it's almost exclusively about corporations creating marketing juggernauts and pleasing the target audience with the safest and the most basic content without the ounce of artistic instincts that are usually needed to mold motion pictures into art. Just like Sir Scorsese once commented on these huge riskless crowd-pleasing corporate events, this is not a cinema, this is something else.

My girlfriend wanted to see this, but I insisted to not support it via purchasing any tickets, let's wait till it gets uploaded to the internet. And I'm glad I kept myself to that.

Tell me whatever you want, this movie has no relevant message whatsoever, not to mention, it has no storyline, only teenage angst issues are thrown at you for more than 2 hours without any real conflict(s).

Oh wait, yeah, there is some base conflict: That the witch is GREEN! Booohooo! Which is an issue here for some magical reasons, and she cries about it for the whole movie, while everyone is being mean to her for NO goddamn reason. If this wants to be an illustration of racism then it is the stupidest display so far, laughably bad representation of the theme, disrespectfully so. Don't you preach about it if you don't know the real reason of its existence in human history and in our modern society.

There are some songs that are catchy, well crafted, and, even Cynthia Erivo can actually act, I appreciate her craft here. However, that still will not release of her and Ariana's sin, the cringey behavior around the whole promotion process of this movie, the way they want to exaggerate social issues around it is not just laughable, but also straight evil and cancerously misinformative.

I simply cannot tolerate western BS anymore, you americans are way out of line and sanity.

The movie is 100% shiny garbage, enjoy!

Beautiful sets (with lighting), choreography, costumes, and great vocalists who anre more than capable of what is asked of them. It also has solid sound capture, edit, and flow, though there is a heavy-hand on the volume fader - I suspect to wake up the audience periodically as the plot crawls forward. And there's the rub - the story drags - this movie lumbers along with no respect for the audience. The movie ends with "To be continued", but I have no interest in seeing the next chapter of this director's ego trip.

And though it's a musical, I did not leave the theatre with an earworm. No hooks, just a lot of excess dialogue put to music.

Give it a pass.

CGI is impressive bringing the land of Oz to life with stunning special effects, costumes, and magical scenery. The Emerald City sparkles, and Elphaba's powers are brought to life in mesmerizing ways.

The movie is predictable and overly long. The story, reframing Elphaba as a misunderstood hero, is predictable, and formulaic, leaning heavily on the tired trope of a mistreated woman seeking justice against "the man," with the Wizard cast as the villain. Big surprise, right? It seems that's all Hollywood can manage in most of its makeovers.

The lack of surprises makes the plot feel repetitive. It's so predictable that it's one of those movies where you can make a couple of concession stand trips, come back, and not miss anything important. Also, don't worry-you'll still hear the loud music blaring from the lobby.

The music, though central to Wicked, becomes overwhelming. Loud, drawn-out ballads dominate the film, slowing the pace and overshadowing the plot. A few standout songs would have been more impactful than the relentless vocal performances. At over two and a half hours, the movie also feels unnecessarily long, dragging in the second half. While visually impressive, Wicked struggles to balance adventure with substance, leaving it more exhausting than magical.

My only foreknowledge of this big budget musical adaptation is that I've seen "The Wizard of Oz"! I've not seen the stage musical on which it was based or even heard any of the songs so viewing it was, I suppose, like setting out on my own yellow brick road of discovery, although rather like Dorothy in the original movie, I too was disappointed with the outcome.

The premise of the film is that Elphaba (crazy name!),The Wicked Witch of the West who we remember Dorothy evaporating to death in the original movie, wasn't as black (or green, I suppose), as she was painted and also that Glinda the uber-unctuous Good Witch of the North was in fact too good to be true.

Over two and a half overlong hours we're subjected to a familiar tale of a young person's "otherness" setting her apart and making her a bullying target at school, her struggle for acceptance and love, even with her own disabled half-sister who you think would be more understanding and supportive of her and finally her teaming up with Miss Goody Two Shoes, Glinda to thwart a nefarious plan concocted by that old charlatan the Wizard of Oz himself. The rather strange plan is to disappear talking animals which will be accomplished by force-mutating monkeys into having wings to turn them into some kind of living drones, the easier to spot the chatty creatures that walk among us.

This is all interspersed with a soundtrack of modern-day songs, often set to mass-populated dance routines none of which, I have to say, lived long in the memory. It's an obvious remark to make but over-contrived rhymes and AI-type melodies which sounded reconfigured from the likes of "Frozen" and "The World's Greatest Showman" will not produce another "Over the Rainbow" or "We're Off to See the Wizard". It all ends with a CGI-infested chase and escape sequence which wouldn't have been out of place in a Marvel super-hero movie just when I thought such things were now considered passé.

I don't want to appear an old churl but really this empty, overblown feature just didn't move me at all and I failed to see how the acting of the principals was considered worthy of Oscar nominations. It's bright and colourful, yes, but it's also very loud and tiresome. In the end none of the characters are likeable, the humour is very much at teen sit-com level and the soundtrack didn't produce a single song that stayed in my head after the interminable end-titles rolled.

In short the movie just didn't fly for me and I truly hope that the "To be continued" legend at the end was an in-joke dedication to the wonderful original movie and not, Oz-forbid, a planned sequel to what was seen here.

Saw the South African premiere last night and was utterly gobsmacked how Universal took a fantastic stage property that I saw on both Broadway and the West End and created such a flat, bland, colourless digital mess.

The vocals by Grande were well executed but the songs just didn't have the energy you feel with a live on stage performance. The script was dragged out, cliche ridden and quite frankly needed some really tight scissors to get things moving - this does not hold for its bloated 2 hour and 40 minute runtime at all.

This talk of Oscar nominations baffles me but maybe I'm just not the target market for this one when The Substance with Demi Moore was my favourite film of the year so far.

C'mon Hollywood make something engaging again and maybe take some notes from Richard 'O Brien of Rocky Horror fame when it comes to adapting stage to screen.

I'm sure I'll be in the minority with this film that felt it was bland and flat but it's an opinion nontheless.

I had high hopes for thie movie. I love the wizard of oz and have never seen this show in theatre so figured i could go in fresh. Many people i have spoke to said it didnt compare to the theatre version. Although i really dont like ariana grande i was so pumped to see this movie so i decided to anyways. I wish i did not. It was way overdone. Maybe it is for the younger generation and i just dont get it. Now i dont know if i will ever watch the wizard of oz again either. No actor truly stood out. The singing wasn't anything special and the movie itself was bloated. I will not be waiting for or watching part 2. Honestly i think like me many will want to see this but then realize there ie no way they are going to watch a second one. They will need to make the money off this one while no one is the wiser.

I came to the show hoping to see a film, but instead I saw a filmed version of the stage show. In most cases, filmed versions of stage shows fail because they are two very different environments. In the early part of the 20th century this was less true because neither films nor stage productions were seen by many, and also because the technology of film production was still in its infancy. Nowadays, with film production techniques so advanced, the film allows so much more than the stage, that filming a stage production is difficult to do successfully.

I didn't see Wicked on stage, but having viewed the film, I can see how it was a very good play, But what kind of a film was it? Very poor. Let me start.

The lip syncing was done very poorly, which is easy to see on a big screen. The cgi was amateurish at best, detracting from the film's value. The dancing was pure theatric, with little use of the camera except to record it. Great in a theater, boring on film.

Then we have the Munchkins. When did they get so tall. I thought they were tiny people. Looked stupid to have suich big Munchkins.

More substantially, I didn't think the quality of the voices was up to speed. Good, yes. Very good? No. Judy Garland? Certainly not.

The acting? Mediocre. Was it supposed to be mediocre to make a point? Who knows. Only the Wicked Witch and the Wizard were any good, and the Wizard was simply doing what Jeff always does.

The story. Way tooooooooooooooo long. With such bad direction and mediocre acting I thought I was being punished. At least 30 minutes could be cut doing no damage to the film.

To summarize, nothing in the film deserved to be filmed, but many of us can be happy that now we've seen the play. What a deep disappointment that when given the chance to make a spectacular film they resorted to filming the stage production.

The Wizard of Oz will never be matched. The story stands on its own, and the film used real people and practical effects to make the movie successful. We don't need a dozen movies for theater plays. No one asked for a live adaptation of Wicked or Cats. This is ridiculous.

New movies nowadays all look the same with godawful CGI. They won't age well. It's probably from the same people who pushed for Gladiator II and yet another Lion King movie. Let it all rest. Hollywood is oversaturating the market with horrible TV shows and movies.

Les Misérables from 2012 is a better musical. It's no wonder people are still watching content from the early 2000s, 1990s, and 1980s. There's not much worth checking out from modern -activists- directors. HBO Max's "The Penguin" is clearly an outlier.

I am a massive musical theatre fan but am not fussed on the Wicked anyway but wanted to give the film a go as I might have viewed it from a different perspective.

Ariana & Cynthia's live singing was great - especially Cynthia whilst doing her own stunts.

Apart from that - my opinion was not changed - I still don't rate it.

The dancing was not really dancing - not even like the contemporary dancing everyone is keen on now - & totally lacked any energy.

There was too much added story which did nothing for it - the stage show isn't much longer than this film.

I was disappointed with the staging - I thought they could have done a lot more with it.

I don't think I'll be watching this again & probably won't even watch part 2 at home.

It wasn't my cup of tea but everyone one has to form their own opinion.

Where do you even begin with a film like this? Let's start with the story. I understand that breaking a film into two parts lets you sell double the movie tickets, and that's all well and good, but when the first part is nearly 3 hours long and has as little happen as this film did, it's pretty insulting. I suppose it's not exactly news that movie studios care only about making money however.

The event/realisation that would usually happen somewhere around the halfway mark in a normal movie happens over 2 hours into this movie. Before then it is just tossing a ball back and forth in warm-ups, with absolutely nothing happening and no story to care about. I understand the musicals aren't always known for their overly engaging stories, but this was ridiculous.

And the music is horrendous. I truly dreaded the next song coming along. There was one good song in the entire movie, I'll give them that. The rest were painful to listen to.

I found the script extremely pandering. Like it was written for children. It feels like a first draft that was never revised. Time and again a character will say something clearly trying to be funny, and it could've been if done in a different way. But everything is so dumbed down and lazy that nothing ever lands.

What about these two performances were Oscar worthy, I'd love to know? An Oscar nominated performance almost always has at least one scene where the character gets to have their big moment and shine through. Neither had that here. I don't understand it. Frances McDormand has to bare her soul in a performance to earn a nomination and these two just get one for hitting their marks in the dance performances?

Finally, I read in the trivia section that both of them refused to lip-sync their songs and wanted to perform live. And yet time and again while I was watching it I could see how out of sync their lip movements were. To quote Ron Burgundy: "I don't believe you."

If this film came out 20 years ago it would be more likely to have received a Razzie nomination than an Oscar nomination. So now for the next 12 months I get to dread part 2 coming along. Joy. A generous 3/10.

I LOVE musicals. Both in person, live on stage and movie adaptations and/or stage recordings. I have read the book and been to the live musical of Wicked. This movie, based heavily on the musical (versus the book)... dragged. They added many extra scenes (fine. I didn't find them necessary, didn't think they add much to the story, but fine). The big problem, they also changed the pacing of the music... So. Many. Pauses. Why are these songs taking three times as long to sing? Why add all those pauses? Oh. To make a 2.5 hour musical take up enough time for two movies. At least that's my guess. The first movie itself is 2 hrs 40 mins.

I couldn't wait to see this. Because of the hype and how emotional the actors were in interviews. But I was so disappointed.

I wonder if I ruined my own experience because I wasn't in touch with the stage musical. Hence why I didn't get what was going on.

I get the whole storyline of the two witch friends, but the storyline and plot was so weak. Nothing was exciting or surprising.

Too much CGI, constant breaking into song and the only likeable character was the green witch, only because I felt sorry for her and she had morals.

Ariana was good, she played an insufferable character and it worked well but I felt it was the same character as in Sam and Cat so nothing was new really....

I love the musical. When I heard this was only part 1 and is 2.5 hours long, I was worried. How can they turn a 90 minute musical into probably a 5 hour, spread across 2 parts, saga.

The answer is, very slowly. The pace is glacial. The characters are mostly great, played, for me, very well. Some of the themes are put across a little clumsily, but they are in the theatre version too.

The world created is bright and impressive. The songs mostly work. Its just the pacing. Its like someone decided this needs to be epic, so it needs an epic duration. I got bored. After 90 minutes I was uncomfortable in my seat, basically waiting for it to end.

I am a big fan of Jeff Goldblum, but by the time he took the screen I had stopped caring.

Cynthia Erivo is very watchable and perfect for the part. Ariana Grande is a bit of a revelation.

The movie got a round of applause at the end - very unusual - so clearly I am in the minority.

Disappointing as I was really looking forward to this.

This is one more example of the "let's turn a classic inside out and upside down and make the good bad and the bad good" trend in today's movies based on classics. Barely creative. Wholly predictable, once you realize the direction in which it is heading. Music is just "eh - notably: the signature set of tones (almost a Tarzan yodel) that is featured in every advertisement (even Target's) are annunciated nonsensically at the close of the movie.

This movie feels like a mashup between a Harry Potter movie, Jim Carey's "The Grinch", the Hunger Games series, and, oddly enough: Steven King's "The Dark Tower" series. I found it incredibly hard to sit through, and am definitely not looking forward to any sequel - of which, obviously, at least one is on the way.

I went into this open minded. I've never seen the stage show but I do like some musicals. I'll start with the positives... It starts off quite fun and I like the visuals. I really enjoyed Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey who played the wizard and Fiyero. However, I'm not sure if I actually did like them or I was just happy to watch someone else other than the 2 main leads. Ariana and Cynthia are good actresses and better singers but it felt like way too much screen time from the both of them. It got to the point where I was dreading another song from them. So this brings me to the negatives... it was WAY TOO LONG and not much substance. I didn't know this was part 1 and when I saw that on the screen I still naively thought part 2 would be the second part of this film! It kinda gets a little interesting at the end but by this point you just want it to finish so you can go home, put your pjs on and get the fire on (that's what I was dreaming of) and then it ends. This could have been a brilliant film if they'd just cut out all the needless scenes and songs (there's a lot of them), focused on the storyline and done it in one film. Maybe then it could have become a classic that we rewatch again and again. I won't bother to watch part 2.

This movie doesn't contains any proper sufficient story. Upto 2 hours only they took for character development in a slow way. That character development can be made fastly if we compare it with movies usually. They made a musical movie but they spoke dialogues also as song it was irritating entirely upto 2 hours. In between they teasing the main story but that too not sufficient to follow the story. We expecting that story will starts from here but they still wastes time by singing dialogues. The last 30 minutes is just made for story but it's incomplete and it's attempt to extend for part two. Part one creates no hype to see part two and it was a profit motive. We expect it like Harry Potter but that was distinct from this. Only two acceptable things one was their acting and secondly the wonderful making.

The idea of the story is pretty good. It had (notice the past tense) potential. But, alas, all of the music sounds the same, it's a little hard to relate to any of the characters, and they were so busy trying to make a fortune from a two-part project that they failed to make the first part particularly memorable. I'll pass on part two.

Visually the movie was enjoyable. It succeeded in creating the "fantastical" world that one might expect of Oz. But perhaps all of the effort that went into that took away from character development in the script.

I'll admit that I prefer "hummable" tunes, and there's very little (if any) of that - and I don't require it to enjoy a musical - but all of these songs were, in my opinion, mediocre and they all sounded the same. Needless to say, it was a little hard to sit through 2 1/2 hours of that, and not even get a complete story.

Incredibly slow, my son was bored, and my gf turned to me at the end and said 'Is that it? Nothing happened!' I know it's a musical, but the songs added nothing, it could have been an hour shorter and been better for it

Incredibly slow, my son was bored, and my gf turned to me at the end and said 'Is that it? Nothing happened!' I know it's a musical, but the songs added nothing, it could have been an hour shorter and been better for it

Incredibly slow, my son was bored, and my gf turned to me at the end and said 'Is that it? Nothing happened!' I know it's a musical, but the songs added nothing, it could have been an hour shorter and been better for it.