“Wicked” - A Discovery of Witches.

I’m not a big fan of origin stories featuring villains. They always start out with the villain being good and, later, either being misunderstood - as Maleficent is in Maleficent, or completely unconvincing in their turn towards evil - as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels. Sometimes, villains are just evil and always were evil. No explanation needed. Wicked is the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz came to be so wicked.

Going into Wicked, I was a little worried about the two hour and forty-minute run time...and this was just part one. You read that correctly. I’ve read the book (by Gregory Maguire) and seen the stage play and I don’t remember either of them being particularly enthralling. They’re not Dune.

Perhaps the biggest thing Wicked gets right is it’s the origin story of not one, but two witches. Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) is the green Technicolor witch eventually melted by Dorothy, but Elphaba shares Wicked’s story with the bubble driving Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande). Excuse me - Galinda Upland, emphasis on the Ga- as lectured by Galinda to history professor and talking goat Doctor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage). Galinda is wicked in a Mean Girls way, caring only about clothes, being popular, and landing the hot guy, Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey). Forced to room with Elphaba, Galinda sets about making Elphaba’s life miserable in the many petty, but very mean ways that bitchy, self-absorbed high school girls always resort to in movies.

The cleverness of the story is it asks the viewer/reader to think twice about who is actually the wicked one. While the main focus is on the dual witches, we also have to consider a few other characters’ level of wickedness. Elphaba’s father and governor of Munchkinland (Andy Nyman) openly despises Elphaba, even at her moment of birth. Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) is the Dean of Sorcery at Shiz University (where Galinda and Elphaba attend school) and is hoping to take advantage of Elphaba’s magical talents for her own ambitions. And we can’t forget Oz’s famous charlatan, the, ahem...Wonderful...Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). In order to continue to stay in power, the wizard needs a true sorcerer to read a magical book called the Grimmerie. The title of wicked is up for grabs and, so far, Elphaba is bringing up the rear.

The broader story is one that will make a lot of people squirm in their seats - the authoritarian takeover of a country through lies, greed, manipulation, and bigotry. All of that will come to a head in Wicked Part 2 (due November 2025) but is very visible in part one, as well. Having green skin sets Elphaba apart from everyone else and the discrimination comes from all directions. Only two other people treat Elphaba as simply a person and both can relate. Elphaba’s sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode), who is paraplegic, and Doctor Dillamond, who, as I said earlier, is a talking goat. When Elphaba learns that there is an effort to cage and mute all talking animals (illustrated by racist graffiti), Elphaba decides to fight for their rights to remain free and is demonized for her efforts. Yes, I’m still describing Wicked, but I know what you’re thinking.

Surprisingly, stretching all of this out over two hours and forty minutes turned out to be a good decision. Another thing I’m not a fan of is musicals, but the long run time allowed the movie to breathe in between song numbers without having to cut any of the songs from the original stage musical. My twelve-year-old son was particularly worried about being bored by a long musical, but we both agreed that the movie never felt slow and didn’t have too much musical. It helps that Erivo and Grande are both exceptional singers and that everything in the movie - from the costuming, to the set design and production, to the CGI, to the actors - are very visually pleasing.

It's been more than a decade since I read the book and attended the musical and it left such little impression on me that I forgot nearly everything I read and saw. Not only did the movie bring it all back, but it did it so well that I enjoyed it much more this time around. While I went into the film wary of many things, I’m now looking forward to Part 2. It’s still no Dune though.

Rating: Don’t ask for any of your money back because even a twelve-year-old boy thinks it’s worth it.

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” - Cold as ice.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel, set sixty-four years prior to the events of The Hunger Games. My biggest concern going into Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was it would treat President Snow the way Anakin Skywalker or Maleficent were treated in their prequels. You know what I mean - an evil character given a backstory where they aren’t just misunderstood, but portrayed as outright pure goodness. Gross.

Young Coriolanus “Coryo” Snow (Tom Blyth) is most definitely not oozing with goodness. But, he’s also not pure evil yet. He’s eighteen years old, his family is broke, and the dean of his school hates him. He’s in survival mode and doing everything he can at school to earn a prestigious award that includes a handsome sum of money. That means he will be nice to who he needs to be nice to and undercut whomever stands in his way. He’s every bit the man we met in the first film.

Unfortunately, academy dean Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) hates Coryo. It’s with no small amount of glee that Casca informs the entire class that the award will not be given to the best student this year. Instead, the top twenty-four students will serve as mentors to the tributes in the tenth annual Hunger Games and the prize winner will be the one whose tribute performs the best. Importantly, this does not necessarily mean the tribute that wins the games, but the one who is the most entertaining. At this point in time, the war with the districts is still fresh on the capital citizens’ minds and the games are not garnering good ratings. How’s that for first-world problems?

Due to obligatory screenwriting cliches, Snow is mentoring the District 12 girl, Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler). Like with Katniss, everyone assumes Lucy Gray will die early. During the reaping (the tribute selection ceremony), Lucy Gray shows more than a little defiance and, sensing an opportunity, Snow proposes to Head Gamemaker Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) that viewers be allowed to sponsor tributes by sending them supplies during the games. Snow then decides to meet Lucy Gray when she arrives in the capital in order to earn her trust, even jumping into the back of the truck with the tributes as they are transported to their holding cages. As Snow is using Lucy Gray to further his own plans, Gaul is doing the same with Snow to improve ratings for the games.

The movie is broken into three distinct parts (each has its own title card), each devoted to the evolution of Snow’s character. At first, Snow regards people from the district as little more than animals, so it’s easy for him to do what is necessary increase his chances of winning the prize. What Snow doesn’t count on is developing feelings for Lucy Gray. It starts as accepting her as a human being when she shows her spirit through defiance. Once in her company, he gains appreciation for her own cold calculations to survive. Once Lucy Gray is competing in the arena, Snow needs her to survive for reasons beyond his family’s survival. Eventually, this culminates with Snow confronting all of his conflicting feelings and forced to make choices. It’s a fantastic arc that ends where it needs to.

Not to be outdone, Lucy Gray is just as conflicted as Snow. She initially hates the capital citizens as much as Snow hates the district people, but she can’t help seeing the good in Snow. The two of them are quite the couple, both playing for their own survival while opening themselves up to each other and relying on each other. And the whole time, we are never certain which emotions are real and which are merely a facade for survival.

On top of the well-written character arcs of Lucy Gray and Snow, the actors themselves deliver fantastic performances filled with nuance and emotion. Zegler and Blyth are both perfectly cast, but there’s a great argument for the always on-point Davis as the star of this show (apologies to Dinklage, who was also very good). Gaul is a mix between Pennywise the Clown and a James Bond villain. She is obviously the origin of what would become the wild aesthetics and personal affectations adopted by the capital citizens in later years. But she is also frighteningly, yet subtly, logical in her discussions of the games with Snow. In short, she is a visual and mental nightmare.

The film also maintains the gritty and raw visuals of the original Hunger Games. The games themselves are as brutal as PG-13 allows and District 12 is as hellish as we remember. Even the capital is a terrifying spectacle, still recovering from the war, but also as a contrast to the districts. Everything we see augments the feeling the film is trying to convey - desperation and vengeance.

I’d like to thank director Francis Lawrence, screenwriters Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, and Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins for not pulling a George Lucas. Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes was much better than I was expecting and does justice to Snow as an origin story. We believe Snow is capable of becoming the President Snow everyone fears. And that is far more than we could say about Anakin Skywalker after The Phantom Menace, which was just gross.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, even if you have other first world problems.