WARNING: SPOILERS

We saw “Wicked” on Broadway in January 2014, long after Kristin Chenoweth (Glinda) and Idina Menzel (Elphaba) had left. It was my first Broadway musical in a while, Patricia’s too—she lived in New York from 1975 to 1995 but was more of a CBGB’s girl—and we weren’t expecting much. It was like the 10th iteration of the cast. How good could they be?

They were amazing. Lindsay Mendez was our Elphaba, and Alli Mauzey our Glinda, and they had more talent than anyone I’d seen in forever. “Right,” I realized. “New York, Broadway. That’s how they roll.”

Back then, writing about “Frozen” and “Wicked,” both of which feature Idina Menzel singing feminist show-stoppers whose message is basically “Witness my power, motherfuckers,” I added:

Now I’m waiting on the “Wicked” movie. It’s too good not to put on the screen. 

Well, we finally got it.

And? 

And I like the opening and closing numbers.

Great set design, too. Love the train to Oz. But man do they milk it.

Finger snapping
They milk it most obviously by splitting it into two movies. This one was released last fall and the next one, “Wicked: For Good,” is out in November. A friend who’d seen the first in the theater said they blew a golden opportunity. If they’re splitting the movie in two, then sure, release the first one as they did, but release the second one a month later. One before Thanksgiving weekend, one before Xmas weekend. Two big moviegoing holidays. Wah-lah. That felt so smart to me. It felt new. It would’ve gotten me into the theater for Part I since Part II was just around the bend. Instead, same old. How are the reviews? Mixed? Yeah, I’ll wait.

But they also milk it within Part I. It’s 2 hours and 40 minutes and feels it. During musical numbers, I wanted to snap my fingers. Not to the beat but to say “Hurry up! What are you waiting on? It’s too slow.”

We get the visual backstory on Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), how her mom screwed around, drank a green liquid, and when she was born everyone was horrified because she was green. Her little sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode), is in a wheelchair, and we later find out it’s because Dad was so fearful of another green baby he made Mom eat milkweed during her pregnancy, which 1) caused the baby to be born premature and lame, and 2) killed Mom. Elphaba blames herself for all this but Galinda lets her know, “No, it’s not your fault! It’s the milkweed’s fault!”

Audience: It’s the Dad’s fault!

Their family dynamic is tortured but not in any way that feels real. It’s Harry Potter all over again: There’s a favored child, and it’s not the one we’re following.

As the family is seeing Nessarose off to Shiz University, Elphaba seems particularly worried for her, so much so that, kablooie, she casts a spell that stuns everyone. The U’s grand dame, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), suddenly gets very very interested in Elphaba. So now Elphaba is a student herself, assigned to bunk with the super-perky, super-blonde Galinda (Ariana Grande), who will, we all know, become the Good Witch of the North.

Grande is lovely, has pipes, and several laugh-oud-loud moments, but she doesn’t have the edge or grandiosity with which Chenoweth and Mauzey imbued Galinda. Those two somehow made Galinda both more shallow and more sympathetic. They were silly, which made her meanness more excusable and her growth more impressive. Grande doesn’t embrace the silly. Her Galinda is fuzzier, with a need in her eyes that Galinda should’ve have; that ruins who Galinda is. Someone who knows that everyone is “less fortunate than I.”

Almost everyone at the university is a shit who ignores Elphaba except to tease her, while Galinda, jealous of Elphaba’s hold over Madame Morrible, is the worst—offering up an old witch’s hat for a night out at the Ozdust Ballroom. Elphaba wears it and is immediately maligned anew. Dweebs with munchkin hairstyles stare and laugh. So what does she do? Dances. Slowly. What does Galinda do? Joins in. That breaks the ice. I didn’t buy it. I don’t know why I bought it onstage and not here, but I didn’t. But it leads to one of my favorite numbers, “Popular,” where Galinda attempts a makeover (she simply has to take over) on Elphaba. Onstage, it pops. Here, it just … sigh. Snap snap snap. Move it along, Jon Chu, JFC.

Do I bring this up? When I saw it onstage, I thought, maybe incorrectly, “Oh, this is like a gay anthem. Elphaba is a metaphor for gay men: I am who I am, que sera sera, and I’m through playing by the rules of someone else’s game.” It uses the story of L. Frank Baum’s witches as a story of gay triumph. I didn’t get that feeling here. I got the opposite of that feeling here. Here, Elphaba is constantly maligned by catty straight women and catty gay men, including SNL’s Bowen Yang. It’s like gay people are the villains rather than the metaphoric triumph.

Maybe that’s all a misread.

Due process
There are subplots with boys. Boq (Ethan Slater), a munchkin, has a thing for Galinda, but takes Nessarose to the ballroom when Galinda asks. Flyero (Jonathan Bailey), a handsome prince, shows up out of nowhere and starts a thing with Galinda, despite a crush on Elphaba. So everyone’s with the wrong person. OK.

I’d forgotten the animal subplot but it certainly speaks to our age. Animals are losing their voices, or disappearing, or winding up in cages, or all three, with Dr. Dillamond, a favored goat professor (voice: Peter Dinklage), as a prime example. Elphaba is distressed, while Galinda, in a grandstanding gesture, announces she’s changing her name to the way the missing Dr. Dillamond pronounced it: Glinda. Love that. Grandstranding aside, it’s so us. Can’t fix a problem (homelessness), just change the nomenclature (“the unhoused”). Magic.

What is the scheme of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible anyway? To get Elphaba to do her magic to help with the incarceration of animals even though she’s against the incarceration of animals? They invite a powerful element inside assuming they can control her. They can’t. Cue: “Defying Gravity,” which is the show’s great musical number, and which the movie, thank fucking god, does right. I had tears in my eyes. Made the previous 2+ hours almost worth it.

Goldblum as the Wizard is inspired casting, and we got cameos from our original girls Chenoweth and Menzel, but I could've used more big-name cameos. Maybe that’ll be Part II.