Geek On Film

Wicked: For Good

• Robbie Holmes • Season 5 • Episode 3

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Welcome to this wonder about Wicked for Good. Let's jump over to our friends at IMDB. Um, Alphabet, the future Wicked Witch of the West, and her relationship with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, the second of a two-part feature film adaptation of the Broadway musical. So it's written by Steven Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and Gregory McGuire, and it's directed by John M. Chu. So over at Letterboxd, I have this is a three-star film. Just got back from the theater and still feel a bit disappointed by this experience overall. I think that both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Arrivo have done it again. They are unbelievable in their roles, but I think the movie has so many issues at the script level and the choices that are being made visually that it makes it really hard for me to go anywhere above three stars. Forget about the heart. She really loved it. So I have some concerns with this movie. I think that I've seen the Broadway show. I I think I even listened to the audiobook of Wicked. Um, I really wanted to love this. And uh it makes me sad to say that it wasn't love worthy from my perspective. Um, I really like the first movie. I think there were choices made in the first movie that I also sort of disagreed with. Uh, I didn't really love the color of the first movie, but I do feel like they they nailed sort of the exact component of the characters. Uh, I think Cynthia Arrivo and Ariana Grande as Alphaba and Glinda have sort of stolen those roles away from the Broadway actors that either founded the role or continue to play them. It's going to be really hard for anyone to think of Wicked, uh, Alphaba or Glinda without thinking of Ariana and Cynthia. And I think that that is an accomplishment. To take something that was so successful and to change how we think about the roles and the characters. Um, I will say the biggest problem, I think, is partially that it's it's still tied directly to the second half of Wicked, which is not as much of a fun ending and doesn't have the types of bangers that the other movies have had. So the emotional stakes are a little different. I think that the song that Cynthia Revo sings uh is the newly written song is really not great and doesn't do a good job, in my opinion, of letting Cynthia off the leash and let her go. Um, and I think the song that Ariana sings that's new is also similarly pretty like weak in structure compared to things like Defying Gravity. But Defying Gravity was like a once-in-a-generation song that was sung by a once-in-a-generation star who has been captured by another once-in-a-generation star. Um, I think similarly, popular is one of those things that it really is the thing you remember coming out of the show, um, Defying Gravity and Popular, and then you see them sort of wrenched away and recontextualized in these two movies. Um, I really didn't like the decisions that were made on how they transformed folks into other characters. Um, but I think the bigger piece here is like it just doesn't have the emotional weight that the first movie had. And that's partially adaptation, partially the original the uh original material, and I think choices that are being made. Didn't hate the movie, really wanted it to succeed, but um I am really glad I got to see it to close the loop. But for me, it was a slight disappointment. I hope your experience is different, but you should go check it out. Thank you so much.

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Robbie Holmes

Host