Gentlemen: I Saw "Wicked" The Movie Last Night and It Was Amazing. Take Your Wife, Your Girlfriend, Or Your Daughters To See It This Weekend

I woke up this morning and the first thing that popped into my head was, "wow, what a movie I saw last night". 

So I tweeted out the above, fully expecting to get roasted and called a loser by all of the nice people on twitter. I fully accept being a loser and enjoying things like good Broadway shows, and books, no matter who they're intended audience is. 

(Sidebar- my favorite Broadway shows I've got to see in order #1- Book of Mormon. #2- Hamilton. #3- Springsteen on Broadway. #4 - Wicked. #5 - Mamma Mia (I fucking love Abba. Sue me))

But there are also two other things I love even more than those that I'm not ashamed to admit. Even in the least. 

1- Going to the movies. Especially the nice theatres they have today with the reclinable leather seats, the full bars you can get wine and cocktails at, and a gigantic bucket of popcorn for the price of a second mortgage. I love it all. When the movie hits there's nothing else like it. I don't care how nice your living room entertainment setup is or how comfortable your couch is. There's nothing like going to a nice theatre and experiencing a movie made for the big screen.

2- Jeff Goldblum. 

Giphy Images.

Enough said. 

And Wicked has each of those in spades. 

It’s a true cinematic experience, which becomes more and more rare nowadays sadly. 

And Jeff Goldblum, who I initially questioned being cast as “The Wizard” blew me away to the point I couldn’t fathom anybody else even being considered for the role.

I was very surprised to see an overwhelming amount of responses to my tweet as positive. From men too. 

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If you've seen the play, than you already know how entertaining a story it is. 

It debuted like 20 years ago at this point and was sold out for like a decade. It has toured the world ever since and been sold out for years. For good reason. 

This guy Gregory Maguire was broke and on the verge of homelessness in London back in the 90s when he got the bright idea to write a backstory on the Wicked Witch of The West from The Wizard Of Oz. The booked "Wicked" came out in 1995. 9 years later the play premiered and $5 BILLION dollars later, the movie is out. 

The guy took the greatest movie ever made, one that picks up midstory essentially, and wrote the prequel to it. He beat Hollywood at its own game pretty much. And he nailed it. Not only does the story make sense and fit together seamlessly, but it completely rewrites the story we all grew up loving since we were kids and forces us to reexamine everything. 

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(Sidebar - I hope for all of our sake they never attempt to remake The Wizard of Oz. Don't mess with perfection)

It's a legit phenomenon, and it's not a tremendous surprise why if you've seen it as I've already said. The other plays I had seen that I ranked above Wicked all also qualify for being one of those things that I think to myself while watching, "how the fuck did somebody think this up?" 

While watching both Book of Mormon, and Hamilton I distinctively remember sitting there at one point, in awe, wondering how some people can be so intelligent, and so talented. Humans are fucking incredible man. But it also has to be a slight hint of divine intervention no? (I read Rick Rubin's book and it helped make a hell of a lot more sense about the creative process and how some people are way more in tune with "receiving" than others. But that's for another blog.)

Back to Wicked. 

Going in to the movie, I knew the film ran 3 hours- very similar to the Broadway show. So I figured it was just a straight adaptation of the play. 

I was wrong. 

After the opening scene, and the opening credits roll, the title flashes on the screen accompanied by "Part 1" in big block text and I began wondering if that meant they would be showing the movie in "acts" like the play, or if this was going to be a "to be continued" film. It ends up being the latter. But that's totally fine. 

Without spoling anything for anybody, the movie stays true to the book, and play. There are some "new" characters in the movie that weren't in the play, but they were in the book originally and added back into the film for comic relief in some cases, and in other's because they can incorporate animals into movies that they aren't able to on a stage in real life. 

The songs are all the same. A few are even extended. 

The visuals are fucking incredible. Stunning even. They did such an unbelievable job of making The Land of Oz feeling as fantastical and amazing as you believed it was watching The Wizard of Oz as a child. 

The colors, the characters, the expansiveness- it's fictional and make believe, but it's realistic at the same time. If that makes sense? 

Kids will be mind blown by the colors alone. 

The music is awesome and Arianna Grande's voice is absolutely insane. Her range is unreal, as in it doesn't make sense how somebody as tiny as her can tip-toe between octaves like she does and hit the notes she does. With ease. 

The storyline is great and it moves along just perfectly. Despite being 3 hours long, you don't feel the film dragging at all. 

As I wrote, if you don't go and see it for your own enjoyment, do yourself a big favor and take your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter, hell, even your mom to see Wicked over the next week or two. You will look like the man, gain huge brownie points, and you honestly won't mind doing it at all.

The movie also doesn’t beat you over the head with any bs woke agenda or anything. Which is refreshing. The themes conveyed are about loving yourself, accepting others and celebrating our differences. And to a lesser extent, to not judge a book by its cover. All great messages for young and old alike. 

Part 2 comes out in late 2025 according to google, so it will also give you something to look forward to and mark your calendars for. 

p.s. - a few guys who've never seen it before asked me if it's "all music" and honestly no it's not even close. I'd say maybe 1/3rd of it is musical numbers and they're honestly so impressive it only adds to the story. 

p.p.s. - if possible, see the movie in a Dolby theatre. The bigger and better the sound, the better your experience will be. For Grande's voice alone. 

p.p.s. - Here's some cool shots of them constructing the Yellowbrick Road from the ste of Part 2

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------ FEW SPOILERS BELOW -------

p.p.p.s. - The first Wicked show I saw had Anna Gasteyer (from SNL) playing the role of Elphaba and she absolutely crushed it. But the original Elphaba and Glinda were played by Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth and they both make cameos towards the end of the movie which is a pretty cool surprise. Point that out to your girl and look like a stud. 

p.p.p.p.s. - I was worried they weren't going to perform "Defying Gravity", (one of the best Broadway show tunes ever) but they do at the very end and it is goosebump-city.