Wicked fails to defy gravity

When pop star Ariana Grande was cast to lead the film version of "Wicked", fans of the smash-hit stage musical began to wonder if the "Wizard of Oz" prequel would be a success on screen. As the first reviews come in, the answer seems to be a resounding no.

'Bloat for bloat's sake'

One complaint unites all the critics: the film is just too long. And yet, at two hours and 40 minutes, it still only tells half the story of its stage-show original – with the second half to follow next year. There is "no conceivable artistic argument" for the length, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. The whole thing "smacks of bloat for bloat's sake".

Even the casting "feels off". Cynthia Erivo and Grande portray the iconic good-witch, bad-witch duo Elphaba and Glinda, but "don't come close to defying gravity". Erivo lends a "grim medical quality" to the emotional passages and Grande just looks like a "pop star having fun while broadening her CV".

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"The lights are on, but nobody’s home" in this curiously "flat" adaptation, said Henry Wong in Esquire. Grande "nails the comedic notes" but "not a single one" of the actors "appears to be acting in the same film". In the end, when "the tempo finally picks up", it's "too little, and at least six show tunes too late".

'Aggressively backlit'

The whole production is weighed down "by its own sense of self-importance", said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture. The direction is "painstaking", the songs are "rousing", the script is "slick" and yet the film just "doesn't take flight".

Both leading actors have "phenomenal vocal talents" and Grande's "knack for comedy" is deployed with "lethal, pink powder precision", said Clarisse Loughrey in The Independent. But why are the characters so "aggressively backlit"? The film is shot "like we're being sold an Airbnb in Mykonos".

At times, "everything does click together nicely and the film suddenly sparks into life", but it's hard to escape the knowledge that the "looming second half" is still to come. Next year's instalment "will need to dream bigger and brighter" or it might "just fade completely under the spell of a classic".