Oz comes in all shapes, sizes and colours

The big screen version of 'Wicked' is just the latest adaptation of 'The Wizard of Oz'

- Aditya Mani Jha

During the afternoon show of John M. Chu's Wicked that I attended, there were no audience members singing along—by all accounts, a recurring problem in the film's American theatrical run. Or there weren't any until the Defying Gravity number, picturised on the film's two witchy leads, the green-skinned, misunderstood Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and the kind-hearted Galinda (Ariana Grande); the two apprentice-witches are destined to become "the Wicked Witch of the East" and "Glinda the Good", respectively, from Frank L. Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

During Defying Gravity, a gaggle of young women near me broke into a not-particularly-synchronised version of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel's song from the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked. I didn't mind because the visuals onscreen were so uninspired—the original number's remarkable stagecraft (a dozen extras holding Elphaba aloft atop a platform, the train of her flowing dress covering up the modus operandi) reduced to a VFX-heavy, superhero-style "climactic fight". Generally speaking, this is the problem with Wicked: it's very good when Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are mostly left to their own devices, singing their hearts out. But whenever a scene calls for visual daring, unconventional staging and dramatic lighting, Chu opts for two-dimensional "music video direction" instead.