‘Wicked’ Review — So spirited and whimsical, you won’t care that it’s ugly!

A review of the new musical, in theaters November 22nd, 2024

Let’s just get it out of the way: yes, Wicked is ugly to look at. Yes, the trailers give a good indication of the movie’s visual palette — most everything desaturated; weirdly backlit (or not at all); windows sometimes so overexposed they wipe the actors out of the image; distracting CGI that covers up what appear to be intricate, colorful sets. No, I don’t know why it looks like that. I can’t imagine what went on in the post-production process here, because it’s a shame. The weirdest thing is that it’s truly on a shot-by-shot basis! Sometimes, a shot will be bursting with color and imagination, and then the reverse shot is so bland and beige and blown-out that it’s downright jarring.

Here’s the good news, though: you’ll barely care, because everything else about the movie is top-notch.

Wicked: Part One is based on the first act of the stage musical, which itself is based on a novel by Gregory Maguire, which itself is based on the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. It aims to tell “the whole story” behind The Wicked Witch of the West, here named Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) — her schooling at Shiz University; her rivalry with Glinda the Good Witch, here named Galinda (Ariana…