Date- Sunday November 24 2024
Party- 3 (my mom, sister and I)
Time- 10:30 (actual movie didn’t start until 10:51)
Duration- 141 minutes (plus 5 trailers)
Notable Cast-
Elphaba- Cynthia Erivo
Glinda- Ariana Grande
Prince Fiyero- Jonathan Bailey
Nessa- Marissa Bode
Boq- Ethan Slater
Professor Dillamond- Peter Dinklage
Professor Morrible- Michelle Yeoh
The Wizard- Jeff Goldblum
A brief comment on the trailers
We’re definitely going to see Sonic 3 when it comes out… although I can’t be the only one looking at this trailer and thinking they ripped off Shadow’s backstory from the first Pokemon movie. Both Shadow and Mewtwo were created in a lab and went berserk so their creators no longer had control of them. I also learned recently how in the original version, Mewtwo went berserk because it’d befriended the clone of a girl and she died… Shadow happens to have a tragic backstory involving a girl named Maria.
Hopefully at some point we’ll see Moana 2 since we saw the original in theaters. I also hope I like it better than Frozen 2, which was a massive disappointment for so many reasons
Legend of Ochi- I have no idea what to think of this one. A girl befriends a small critter that had been hyped up as a monster until she came across it. And they become fugitives as a result. (According to Wikipedia, it's an original screenplay written by the director in their debut and she's returning the creature to its family)
The bad guys 2- I hadn’t seen the original so I guess it did
well enough to warrant a sequel?
How to train your dragon- live action
This is just a teaser trailer but dang, it looks so much
like the cartoon. Toothless looks remarkably realistic.
The Main Event
I’ll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible although if you’re familiar with the Wizard of Oz and seen enough of the trailers, you already have a pretty good idea of what to expect.
Per my own experience, I’d never read the book and I only knew what I knew about the musical because some of my family had seen it years ago. I did grow up watching the original Judy Garland movie so it’s as much a part of my childhood as fairytales and the Disney movies based on them. So much of my discussion of the movie will be viewed through a lens encompassing all of these things.
With all the talk and hype, I expected this movie to be good and it was. It was REALLY good. Vivid and stunning. All the roles were cast perfectly- and with something as big as this, they clearly took a lot of care with the casting choices.
It’s also roughly the length of a Harry Potter movie (somewhere over the 2hr 20 minute mark) and it was paced really well. I was enthralled enough that I never got bored or wondered if it was going to be over soon. The one small exception was the party scene where everything goes eerily quiet (except for the hushed laughter of the supporting cast) for a long 5 minutes… I kinda knew where it was going but it took way too long to get there.
I vaguely remembered hearing the backstory of Elphaba and
her sister. How her sister is disabled and she was blamed for it or that she’s
responsible for looking after her.
There’s so much talk these days about casting other-abled people in other-abled roles and they definitely got it right here. Not just for the actress playing Nessa but hiring a wheelchair choreographer to coordinate her dance scene.
Christopher Scott was the main choreographer. We’d seen his work on “so you think you can dance” a bunch of times and this was an upscaled version of what he already does so well. Maybe he’ll be launched into the same stratosphere Mandy Moore has been enjoying since she did “La La land.” One can only hope…
I knew the basic arc where Glinda and Elphaba would go from enemies to friends to something more complicated by the end of the movie but not the how or why.
From the trailers I figured that Elphaba is made the enemy because she finds out the wizard has no magic… but there’s a lot more to that.
But while I had a pretty good idea of how the movie would
end (we all kinda saw that coming, let’s be real), I had no clue how it would
start.
I should have expected it but I never expected my initial
gut reaction. We start near the end of the wizard of Oz- the wicked witch is
dead- and everyone is celebrating. And I was sad, close to bawling my eyes out.
It’s one of those bizarre moments where you consider telling this to your past
self and your past self thinking you’re crazy. I’m still wrapping my head
around it.
At least 10 minutes go by before we actually get to the title screen and the story begin. It was a huge relief to finally get there cuz I didn’t want to feel that way for the whole movie.
The only other song I knew of, other than Defying Gravity
(Glee gave me some fond memories of that song…), was Popular and I was curious
where it would show up in the movie, the context and so on.
I didn’t know what to expect but the anticipation I had paid off. It was so over the top and fun.
This movie is easily the longest amount of time I’d purposely spent with Ariana Grande. I like maybe two of her songs (Into You, Dangerous Woman) and she had that one duet (Rain on Me) with Lady Gaga. Otherwise I skip her on the radio cuz her unintelligible high range annoys me… but I really liked her in this role. If she wins an Oscar, I’d be all for it. I heard numerous comments about Glinda doing a lot of hair flipping in the musical and she absolutely nailed the hilarity of that aspect of her character.
Another fun musical number was "Dancing through Life" when the Prince shows up and
essentially encourages all the other students to be delinquents by ignoring
their studies. And also to go to the supposedly forbidden ballroom for a dance…
I almost feel like asking in retrospect, “is this Oz or Footloose?” Why was
this ballroom forbidden?
(That set was one of a few I literally gasped when I saw it
the first. Another was obviously the emerald city- that’ll never not be
impressive to look at).
Probably the most fascinating thing about this movie- which will feed into my hype for the sequel- you never know what to expect from the characters. Will the ones you admire one minute be ones you turn your back on the next?
The biggest question mark for me at the end of this movie
involves Prince Fiyero. He spends a fair amount of time with both of the girls,
but something tells me whichever side he aligns himself with— things will
become very interesting once that choice becomes clear.
Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum were both brilliant as
always.
Ever since her meteoric rise into the mainstream in recent
years, Michelle has been nothing short of brilliant in everything I’d seen her
in. Plus I’m reading crazy rich Asians now and I can’t help hearing her voice
in my head when her character is on the page.
Also, Jeff Goldblum has been a regular in our stratosphere
of actors because of his work in Jurassic Park and Independence Day- I don’t
think I’d ever seen him smile this much in my life. Even seeing him in the NBC special previewing the movie, it was like being around a new person. He must
have really enjoyed his time with this movie but the same can probably be said
for everyone who worked on this project.
In this version of Oz, there’s talking animals who work alongside the humans. One is a goat who touched history at Shiz University- another great performance from Peter Dinklage. The CGI with those characters is really well done.
Of course this wouldn’t be a pop culture phenomenon without a bunch of Easter eggs. I only spotted maybe a quarter of the ones they included… no joke, there was one obvious one where I didn’t make the connection until the movie was almost over.
And yes, after all the hype, Defying Gravity lived up to all of it. Of course I'll always been a little sentimental for Kurt and Rachel's "Glee" duet...
So much had been made from that final high note on the
different cross promotion ads- and is likely the reason for those viral theater
notices discouraging audience participation- but after so much anticipation, it
felt like my heart shattering into a million pieces like fireworks. Reveling in the unadultered sense of freedom.
I knew Cynthia was good in Harriet and the accompanying song
she was nominated for at the Oscars but DANG— if she doesn’t win all the awards
for this movie (not just this moment but the whole thing), someone royally
screwed up.
This theme in recent years, mostly from Disney, about
rewriting the history of the villains. Giving them lengthy backstories or
revising their relationship with their enemies. Maleficent I’m still hot and
cold on and Cruella with Emma stone was really well done.
This movie will probably go down as the best version of this
idea. And likely the one that inspired all the others since the book came out
in the 90s.
I’m open with reinterpretations of fairytales until I hit a
plot point or something that doesn’t jelly my peanut butter or however that
saying goes.
I don’t know the ending of the musical so all this is pure
speculation on my part…
Until the sequel comes out next year, I guess I’ll be left
wondering one final thing… will Elphaba continue to be vilified just because
she has the “incorrect” perspective on things or will there be a point she
becomes evil and beyond any sort of redemption?
Even if it winds up being the latter, the inevitable
conclusion of her story might be easier for me to process but I have no way of
knowing until we get there.
I pretty much always cry at the end of musicals anyway, even
if it’s a happy ending, so if the end of this saga destroys me, it’s simply par
for the course and I’ll just have to deal with it when the time comes.
I’ll also be curious to see how Glinda’s role in all this changes. Will she simply accept the lie of public enemy 1 just to go along with everyone else? Or will she still regard her as a friend and be too protective of her image to admit that to anyone else?
Grade- a solid A
Will it win all the awards it’s supposedly going to be nominated for? Possibly… but I hope it wins the big ones just so I can say I was part of it. I’m not always lucky enough to see Oscar winners before they win, especially in the theater on opening weekend.
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