'Wicked: Part One' review: This re-imagination of the hit musical is a cinematic showstopper

CTV film critic Richard Crouse says 'Wicked' is a bold, brassy re-imagination of the beloved hit musical that brews up its own cinematic vibe.

A big, bold and brassy re-imagination of the fifth longest-running show in Broadway history is an origin story that pays tribute to the beloved stage show, but also brews up its own cinematic vibe.

Set before Dorothy Gale blew into the Land of Oz, “Wicked,” the first half of the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, chronicles the unlikely friendship between Shiz University ("Where knowledge meets magic!") students Elphaba Thropp, before she became the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda Upland, who later becomes Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

“Are people born wicked?” asks Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera), “or do they have wickedness thrust on them?”

Fans of the show will be pleased to know the themes that made "the untold story of the witches of Oz" so popular have been maintained.

As the fairy tale unfolds, it reveals commentary on identity, privilege and control woven into the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda’s friendship and the climatic showdown with Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the (not-so) Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum).

Elphaba is kind, intelligent and honest, but suffers society’s slings and arrows because she looks and behaves differently than the norm. “I don’t cause a commotion,” she says. “I am one.”