'Wicked: Part One' review: This re-imagination of the hit musical is a cinematic showstopper

'Wicked': 4 out of 5 stars Film critic Richard Crouse shares his take on newly-released movies including 'Wicked', 'Gladiator II' and more.

A big, bold and brassy re-imagination of the fifth longest-running show in Broadway history is an origin story that pays tribute to the beloved stage show, but also brews up its own cinematic vibe.

Set before Dorothy Gale blew into the Land of Oz, “Wicked,” the first half of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, chronicles the unlikely friendship between Shiz University ("Where knowledge meets magic!") students Elphaba Thropp, before she became the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda Upland, who later becomes Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

“Are people born wicked?” asks Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera), “or do they have wickedness thrust on them?”

Fans of the show will be pleased to know the themes that made "the untold story of the witches of Oz" so popular have been maintained.

As the fairy tale unfolds, it reveals commentary on identity, privilege and control woven into the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda’s friendship and the climatic showdown with Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the (not-so) Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).

Elphaba is kind, intelligent and honest, but suffers society’s slings and arrows because she looks and behaves differently than the norm. “I don’t cause a commotion,” she says. “I am one.”

She is the green-skinned outsider, misjudged by everyone from her father (Andy Nyman) to the student body of Shiz University, who openly laugh at her.

With powerhouse vocals (even when she’s singing a duet with a goat), Erivo guides the character along a journey from innocence to a certain kind of jadedness as she learns how the world really works. In doing so, facing racism and persecution, Elphaba, a character who is very specific to the story, turns into a universal avatar for the misunderstood.

When Madame Morrible strips her of her name, dubbing her the Wicked Witch, she is villainized by a powerful bully, but finds strength in that adversity.

Erivo’s intensity is countered by Grande-Butera’s bubbly, hair-flipping comedic take on the spoiled Galinda. “Something is wrong,” she says with wide-eyed wonder. “I didn’t get my way.” Her vocals soar, but it is the chemistry she shares with Erivo and the glittery gusto with which she attacks the role that is memorable.

Thematically and performance-wise, “Wicked” gets it right. The beloved mix of lighter songs, emotional numbers and power ballads are expertly and lovingly rendered, and director Jon M. Chu fills the screen with constant movement and elaborate set design.

But at 2 hours and 40 minutes—that's just five minutes shy of the entire stage show’s runtime, including intermission—the movie feels overstuffed. Several scenes are overlong and over designed, despite Chu’s enthusiastic direction, as though the film is a little too in love with its own iconography.

In other words, ain’t no rest for the “Wicked.”

Still, by the time “Wicked: Part One” gets to its finale, Elphaba’s transformation into the Wicked Witch and the rousing version of the show’s signature song, “Defying Gravity,” blows off whatever dust may have accumulated.

It’s a showstopper that literally brings the curtain down until part two drops in theatres on Nov. 21, 2025.

4 out of 5 stars