12/31/24 - Wicked (2024) - 5/10

Bubblegum Legally Barbie in Wonka Potter Narnia that was…ok. I expected to hate it but the music was decent and the performances were engaging, at least for the two leads. It made it passably enjoyable, which is more than I anticipated.

Hey, I didn’t loathe it but it is WAAAYYY too long and slow, with minimal character development for the amount of time we are with them. I can’t imagine it needing to be split into 2 films. I guess money is the ultimate goal here.

Erivo is excellent and Grande a tremendous companion. Both were fantastic with their singing and mostly brought it with their acting against eachother. Nobody else really stuck out, while Jeff Goldblum moved passed my threshold of him doing his same tired schtick. 

The overarching plot is quite vague and seems like a tacked on issue with something to say that I feel won’t actually matter in the end (like house-elf rights in Harry Potter) but maybe it will play out to be something of significance in the sequel. 

Some of the magic seems overstuffed while the meanings and meat of matter felt under squeezed. The costumes and some of the sets were dazzling, while the CGI was depressingly underdone. A film that I found tolerable but perhaps for a more forgiving and energized audience might really fly, but my movie monkey did not get wings here.