Wicked has one huge problem and it’s impossible to ignore

No one’s mourning Wicked – it is a wonderful movie that near-flawlessly adapts one of the greatest musicals of all time, and it deserves its box office glory. However, its drab, needlessly grounded aesthetic left me with… what’s this feeling? Loathing, unadulterated loathing. 

I never doubted Jon M. Chu. Sure, he’s had some misses (G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Jem and the Holograms), but he also directed Step Up 2: The Streets (one of the most underrated movies of the 2000s), Now You See Me 2 (absolutely preposterous, but undeniably slick), and Crazy Rich Asians (an all-timer rom-com). 

However, I was worried about the cinematic translation of the show, especially after Chu made the bold decision to split Wicked into two films; when Part 2 comes out, its total runtime could be twice the length of the original production. 

Universal Pictures

Thankfully, Part 1 assuaged those concerns: it is a thrillifying adaptation worth rejoicifying over, complete with two extraordinary performances courtesy of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, superbly choreographed numbers, and most importantly, it is astonishingly well-paced. By the time ‘Defying Gravity’ hits – and boy, it hits – you won’t realize that almost three hours have flown by. 

Alas, it makes one huge misstep: for the most part, its flat lighting and horrendible color grading are more befitting of a car commercial than a big-budget musical movie. Pinks aren’t that pink, greens aren’t that green, and scenes are relentlessly backlit to their detriment; ‘Dancing Through Life’ is a particularly frustrating offender. 

Speaking to the Globe and Mail, Chu was asked why the movie looks so desaturated. In his eyes, “there’s color all over it.” 

“I think what we wanted to do was immerse people into Oz, to make it a real place. Because if it was a fake place, if it was a dream in someone’s mind, then the real relationships and the stakes that these two girls are going through wouldn’t feel real,” he explained. 

It gets worse: because we’ve seen Oz as a “matte painting” and “video game digital world” before, he wanted the audience to “feel the dirt… I want to feel the wear and tear of it.”

Ah, yes, because that’s what people want from Oz: realism! As Glinda sang, “I hope you’re happy how you’ve hurt your cause forever, I hope you think you’re clever.”

Universal Pictures

To give Chu some credit, he also said the color contrast “goes up over time because that is what Elphaba brings to this world.” This rings true in the movie’s final scene, particularly as Elphaba belts out her final, tear-jerking note and hovers high in the sky with lightning crackling all around her. It’s the best shot of the film (it should have cut to the ‘To be continued’ card straight after), but it isn’t representative of everything that comes before. 

I also understand his point: he wanted his film to have a unique visual perspective of Oz and the Emerald City. He accomplishes that with CGI (the monkeys look incredible, and the effects are generally spectacular), but it’s so much harder to appreciate when: 1) it fails to evoke the magic of its wondrous setting and 2) its iconic predecessor is one of the best-looking movies ever made, and it came out 85 years ago. 

The Wizard of Oz showcased the irreplaceable beauty of Technicolor in all of its splendor. It was mostly abandoned by the ‘70s, mostly due to its expense and complexity (especially the three-strip process), and the technology is now considered obsolete, if not lost altogether. 

However, that doesn’t mean movies can’t mimic its aesthetic; Pearl, La La Land, The Love Witch, and even Quentin Tarantino’s films pulled it off. 

Wicked was never going to escape comparisons to The Wizard of Oz, so it should have leaned into its legacy, at least a little bit; I didn’t need it to look that good. I just wished it looked better. 

Keep up to date with Wicked’s box office, when to pee during Wicked, where to stream Wicked, and what we know about Wicked: Part 2 so far.