Fuck me man this was good! 

I wasn’t interested in this at all but seeing the overwhelming buzz for it I decided “fuck if why not?” and I’m honestly glad I did. I am pretty sure I saw Wizard of Oz when I was really young and so I do have familiarity with the story. This and part two are based off a play that is basically a big origin story for The Wicked Witch, and on that part it got me to give a shit about her a lot man like damn. Cynthia Erivo did an excellent job as her, Ariana Grande also surprisingly delivered a great performance as Glinda. Their chemistry really worked here for me and the emotional core with their relationship, while not entirely new, was immaculately put together. 

I just love the scope and heart of this thing, Jon M. Chu put to much thought into the craft in its production alone. The direction with the musician sequences were all superb, with much more sauce then what I was expecting for sure. Although I do think this could’ve really benefitted with better lighting and color grading, much better lighting and color grading. A lot of the time it just feels like raw footage that they forgot to put in the color section of the editing software. Regardless it didn’t ruin my enjoyment too much but it is an issue that I hope Part 2 fixes lol. 

Overall a really pleasant surprise and I can’t wait for part two!