We’re off to see the witches! As of Friday, Nov. 22, what I consider the most highly anticipated movie of the year, “Wicked,” was finally released in theaters after what felt like a century of waiting.
This movie is the first of two parts. “Wicked” is a dazzling prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” before Dorothy makes her appearance in Oz. It follows the story of two witches: Elphaba, played by Cynthia Erivo, and Glinda, played by Ariana Grande. This film is based on one of the biggest Broadway hits of the 21st century, which is an adaptation of the original novel by Gregory Maguire.
I have never seen the Broadway musical, nor do I have any prior knowledge of the plot. But I’d heard and seen so many good things, so I went and saw the film on Friday. I went in with zero knowledge and zero expectations. All I knew was this film was everything anyone was talking about.
After seeing the first part of this two-part movie, I have to say, it really is worth all the hype.
“I thought it was really good,” said Kaitlin Taylor, a sophomore management major. “It started out kind of fast-paced, and there was a lot of stuff that didn’t make any sense, but other than that, it was good and really funny.”
They had me in the first half, though, I’m not going to lie. I was unsure if I really even liked it. I thought it was fun, and the setting and costumes were beautiful, but I was unimpressed with the plot. Yes, they hated each other, then got to know each other, then became best friends, but that’s a classic trope I’ve seen plenty of times.
I was thoroughly unimpressed because I felt like I could anticipate everything before it would happen. I am someone who can often predict the outcome of movies just based on common themes and tropes and the predictability of plotlines, so it is very difficult for me to find a movie that interests me all the way until the end that truly presents unexpected twists and turns.
Although I had my doubts in the beginning, once the main characters, Glinda and Elphaba, became friends, I was captivated. It was just unfortunate that it took an hour into the movie for that to happen, but I guess I understand that you really need to set up the scene in order to fully understand the entire picture.
Erivo and Grande did an amazing job of making me fall in love with their individual characters as well as the friendship that the two of them shared. It was utterly enchanting.
Plus, it was also hilarious. The witty humor of Elphaba intertwined with the silly yet charming humor of Glinda made for a really fun mix.
I was also very impressed with the vocals as well as the choreography. Each scene really had me feeling like I was a part of the cast and really there dancing with them.
“My favorite part, I think, was just that they did a really good job with the CGI and the scenery,” Taylor said. “Especially in the end, it really felt like you were part of the movie with the sunset and everything. It was really pretty the whole time, so it looked like they had a high budget.”
According to Nathan Crowley, a production designer for “Wicked,” there was actually very little CGI when it came to set design. The team went out and found real scenery and filmed in those locations or made it themselves in order for a better effect.
“Let’s talk about Munchkinland,” Crowley said. “The first thing for me is like, okay, who are they? How can that influence the design? If they’re farmers, what do they farm? And I proposed that we grow 9 million tulips in Eastern England. And when you see a person run through them across a diagonal, and you’ve got a camera up here, it’s all real, it’s all in camera.”
They literally planted thousands of real tulips for this movie…that’s dedication to beautiful cinematography.
They built real boats and a train. They visited historic sights, landscaped and filmed with real architecture from all over Europe. There was no way these production designers were going to have anything unauthentic in this movie, except for the talking animals, of course.
I can promise that this movie will have you dreaming of running through a field of tulips, wanting to rock some silver slippers and wishing you could defy gravity. It may not become everyone’s favorite movie of all time, but I am sure of one thing, and that is that this movie is truly going to be “popular.”
