Best of 2024, #7: Wicked

I walked into this movie feeling incredibly dubious, especially of Ariana Grande, and it didn’t grab me for the first ten minutes or so, but soon enough the movie and Grande won me over. She’s just delightful

One of the oddest things about the movie was how complete it seemed. It’s just the first half of the musical but everything seems to wrap up pretty well. Both times I saw the show on Broadway, I liked the first act much more than the second half, so I kind of like have it lopped off like this. I will go into Part 2 suspicious all over again, and if it fails to win me over, I will be content to treat this movie as the whole thing.

What’s the Matter With Hollywood: Why Are Movies So Long These Days?

There are only so many stories you can write about how long movies have gotten in the last five years, but this movie reignited the debate, because it takes one hour of the musical and adapts it into a two hour and forty minute movie, which seems particularly elephantine.

The movie does feel too long, and, as always, I did spot things that could come out. Fans would have gone apoplectic, but the entire long sequence with Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth comes right out.

But even the changes I would suggest would only get the movie down to 2:20 or so, still leaning it more than twice the length of its source material. This is because many the additions are good. Many things that were never clear in the musical are much clearer here, such as why the animals can’t talk and the mechanics of their oppression. 

Ultimately, this movie was a hit and widely acclaimed, so they seemingly made the right choice to swell it up so much, though that violates everything I was ever taught about how to tell a good story.