Martin Marsh

As someone who has seen the stage show 5 times and fallen in love with it more each time, I went to watch the film with just a smidgeon of trepidation. All my worries were totally unfounded as I just wallowed in the wonderful 2 hours 40 minutes of this dazzling film. It is hard not to attach superlatives to every aspect of this film. The relationship between Glinda and Elphaba is electrifying and the chemistry between them causing an emotional resonance inside me that I have rarely experienced in a cinema. The scene at the ballroom where Elphaba dances without music while the crowd sniggers is an emotional tour de force. So early in the film and already I totally cared for Elphaba so absorbed was I in her character. All the acting is superb and the singing is just wonderful. The music seamlessly fits into the film and unlike in many musicals seems totally natural. Dance scenes are brilliantly choreographed. The cinematography is fantastic. Beautiful and stunning to look it. Although AI and CGI must have been used in the film you wouldn’t know it. You are beamed into this fantasy world and just become part of it for the whole duration of the film. I lived the film as I watched it. By the end I was in tears and left the cinema drained by the experience. You will hear criticism of the film’s length but for me the time passed like lightning. I can’t wait for the second part, even though I know what happens, and only hope I can watch both films one after the other and live the whole Wicked experience once again.

A bit of a mess really. Visually stunning exciting in parts but I didn’t care enough about the characters to have an emotional engagement with them. Some terrible dialogue especially at the start. Second half is better and lots of links to previous films.