Movie Reviews

‘Wicked’ movie review: A spellbinding spectacle that almost soars | Oscars 2025

Published

1 year ago

February 24, 2025

‘Wicked’ movie review: A spellbinding spectacle that almost soars | Oscars 2025

Everyone is born unique and special in their own way. But what if you lived in a magical world where animals talk and even teach classes? You’d think that everything—no matter how unusual—would be considered normal, right?
Well, not quite. Imagine being born green in this enchanted land, only to be treated as a misfit. Everyone laughs at you, but little do they know—you possess extraordinary magical abilities that set you apart.

That’s the heart of Wicked, directed by Jon M Chu and starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. This highly anticipated adaptation, which has already secured an Oscar nomination for Best Picture this year, attempts to bring the beloved musical’s magic to the big screen. But does it truly capture the essence of its source material? Let’s find out.

Cynthia Erivo brings Elphaba Thropp to life—a young woman born with green skin, constantly misunderstood by those around her, only to one day become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West
The film opens with the villagers celebrating the news of the Wicked Witch’s death, their joy echoing through the land. It’s Glinda (Ariana Grande), now a revered sorceress, who confirms the news. From there, the story rewinds, taking us back to Elphaba and Glinda’s school days, revealing how their paths first crossed and the bond that shaped them both.

The musical takes its time unfolding, which can test our patience at times, but its stunning visuals make up for it. The film follows a familiar narrative of good vs. evil and beauty vs. perceived ugliness. However, what truly keeps the story engaging is the performances of its lead actors.

Ariana Grande, in particular, seems to be having a blast as Glinda, embracing the character’s over-the-top, self-absorbed nature. Her exaggerated mannerisms and animated presence add a playful charm to the role. Cynthia Erivo, on the other hand, delivers a grounded performance, exuding a quiet yet powerful charm that makes her portrayal compelling.

What truly sets the film apart is its grand production scale. From the dazzling Emerald City to the towering halls of Shiz University and its vast library, every set piece feels massive, adding to the film’s immersive spectacle. The film’s strength lies not just in its performances but also in its ability to reimagine a well-known story with emotional depth. Elphaba’s journey is more than just a tale of magic—it’s a story of rejection, self-acceptance, and the grey areas between good and evil. The dynamic between Glinda and Elphaba is the heart of the film, exploring how two seemingly opposite individuals form a bond that challenges their beliefs and ultimately shapes their destinies.

Musically, ‘Wicked’ brings its Broadway origins to the big screen with mixed results. While the songs retain their magic, some numbers feel slightly restrained compared to the stage version. Grande’s vocals shine in the more whimsical pieces, while Erivo’s powerhouse voice elevates the film’s emotional weight, especially in pivotal moments like “Defying Gravity.” The soundtrack is undeniably a highlight, though some sequences struggle to match the sheer energy of their theatrical counterparts.

Visually, the film is a spectacle. Chu’s direction leans heavily into vibrant, fantastical world-building, creating a mesmerizing aesthetic that feels grand yet intimate when needed. The Emerald City shimmers with opulence, while the darker corners of Oz carry an eerie beauty. However, at times, the film’s pacing and indulgence in visual grandeur threaten to overshadow the emotional beats, making certain moments feel drawn out.
Despite its occasional flaws, ‘Wicked’ successfully captures the essence of its source material. It delivers a heartfelt and visually captivating retelling of a beloved musical, powered by strong performances and an enchanting score.

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Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Published

6 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Just when you think Pixar’s petting-zoo cute new movie “Hoppers” is flagrantly ripping off James Cameron, the characters come clean.

movie review

HOPPERS

Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG (action/peril, some scary images and mild language). In theaters March 6.

“You guys, this is like ‘Avatar’!,” squeals 19-year-old Mabel (Piper Curda), the studio’s rare college-age heroine.

Shoots back her nutty professor, Dr. Fairfax (Kathy Kajimy): “This is nothing like ‘Avatar!’”

Sorry, Doc, it definitely is. And that’s fine. Placing the smart sci-fi story atop an animated family film feels right for Pixar, which has long fused the technological, the fantastical and the natural into a warm signature blend. Also, come on, “Avatar” is “Dances With Wolves” via “E.T.”

What separates “Hoppers” from the pack of recent Pix flix, which have been wholesome as a church bake sale, is its comic irreverence.

Director Daniel Chong’s original movie is terribly funny, and often in an unfamiliar, warped way for the cerebral and mushy studio. For example, I’ve never witnessed so many speaking characters be killed off in a Pixar movie — and laughed heartily at their offings to boot.

What’s the parallel to Pandora? Mabel, a budding environmental activist, has stumbled on a secret laboratory where her kooky teachers can beam their minds into realistic robot animals in order to study them. They call the devices “hoppers.”

Bold and fiery Mabel — PETA, but palatable — sees an opportunity.

The mayor of Beaverton, Jerry (Jon Hamm), plans to destroy her beloved local pond that’s teeming with wildlife to build an expressway. And the only thing stopping the egomaniacal pol — a more upbeat version of President Business from “The Lego Movie” — is the water’s critters, who have all mysteriously disappeared.

So, Mabel avatars into beaver-bot, and sets off in search of the lost creatures to discover why they’ve left.

From there, the movie written by Jesse Andrews (“Luca”) toys with “Toy Story.” Here’s what mischief fuzzy mammals, birds, reptiles and insects get up to when humans aren’t snooping around. Dance aerobics, it turns out.

Per the usual, “Hoppers” goes deep inside their intricate society. The beasts have a formal political system of antagonistic “Game of Thrones”-like royal houses. The most menacing are the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep — I’d call her a chameleon, but she’s playing a bug), a staunch monarch butterfly and her conniving caterpillar kid (Dave Franco). They’re scheming for power.

Perfectly content with his station is Mabel’s new best furry friend King George (Bobby Moynihan), a gullible beaver who ascended to the throne unexpectedly. He happily enforces “pond rules,” such as, “When you gotta eat, eat.”

That means predators have free rein to nosh on prey, and everybody’s cool with it. Because of bone-dry deliveries, like exhausted office drones, the four-legged cast members are hilarious as they go about their Animal Planet activities.

No surprise — talking lizards, sharks, bears, geese and frogs are the real stars here. They far outshine Mabel, even when she dons beaver attire. Much like a 19-year-old in a job interview, she doesn’t leave much of an impression.

Yes, the teen has a heartfelt motivation: The embattled pond was her late grandma’s favorite place. Mabel promised her that she’d protect it.

But in personality she doesn’t rank as one of Pixar’s most engaging leads, perhaps because she’s past voting age. Mabel is nestled in a nebulous phase between teenage rebellion and adulthood that’s pretty blasé, even if a touch of tension comes from her hiding her Homo sapien identity from her new diminutive pals. When animated, kids make better adventurers, plain and simple.

“Hoppers” continues Pixar’s run of humble, charming originals (“Luca,” “Elio”) in between billion-dollar-grossing, idea-starved sequels (“Inside Out 2,” probably “Toy Story 5”). The Disney-owned studio’s days of irrepressible innovation and unmatched imagination are well behind it. No one’s awed by anything anymore. “Coco,” almost 10 years ago, was their last new property to wow on the scale of peak Pixar.

Look, the new movie is likable and has a brain, heart and ample laughs. That’s more than I can say for most family fare. “A Minecraft Movie” made me wanna hop right out of the theater.

Movie Reviews

Review | Hoppers: Pixar’s new animation is a hilarious, heartfelt animal Avatar

Published

18 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

4/5 stars

Bounding into cinemas just in time for spring, the latest Pixar animation is a pleasingly charming tale of man vs nature, with a bit of crazy robot tech thrown in.

The star of Hoppers is Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda), a young animal-lover leading a one-girl protest over a freeway being built through the tranquil countryside near her hometown of Beaverton.

Because the freeway is the pet project of the town’s popular mayor, Jerry (Jon Hamm), who is vying for re-election, Mabel’s protests fall on deaf ears.

Everything changes when she stumbles upon top-secret research by her biology professor, Dr Sam Fairfax (Kathy Najimy), that allows for the human consciousness to be linked to robotic animals. This lets users get up close and personal with other species.

“This is like Avatar,” Mabel coos, and, in truth, it is. Plugged into a headset, Mabel is reborn inside a robotic beaver. She plans to recruit a real beaver to help populate the glade, which is set to be destroyed by Jerry’s proposed road.

Movie Reviews

Film reviews: ‘How to Make a Killing,’ ‘Pillion,’ and ‘Midwinter Break’

Published

1 day ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

‘How to Make a Killing’

Directed by John Patton Ford (R)

★★

“Trying to find your niche as a movie star isn’t easy,” said Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter. Take Glen Powell. A year ago, the Twisters and Anyone but You star was being talked about as possibly the next
Tom Cruise. But he “stumbled badly” when he tried to play a macho action hero in November’s remake of The Running Man, and he’s now turned in a second straight box office flop. He took a risk with How to Make a Killing, playing a guy cheated by fate who we’re supposed to root for as he begins murdering off the seven rich relatives standing between him and an enormous inheritance. But c’mon. “Powell is charming, but he’s not that charming.”

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The movie “needed to pick a side,” said Jacob Oller in AV Club. It could have been “a clownish class comedy” or “bitter sociopathic satire,” but it winds up being neither, and “at the center of it all is Powell, making the
same face for an hour and 45 minutes, too unflappable to root for, too smug to magnetize as an inhuman American Psycho.” I’m not ready to give up on him, said Nick Schager in the Daily Beast. To me, he and co-star Margaret Qualley, who plays the femme fatale who eggs on the killing spree, come across as “such alluringly nasty delights” that this reworking of the 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets “ survives its potentially lethal missteps and works on its own limited terms.” Though its teeth aren’t as sharp as they should be, “it’s smart and spiky enough to leave a pleasurably painful mark.”

‘Pillion’

Directed by Harry Lighton (Not rated)

★★★★

While this gay BDSM rom-com from a rookie director “might sound niche,” said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times, “free yourself to see it and you’ll discover it’s a universal romance.” Former Harry Potter side figure Harry Melling stars as a shy singleton who’s figuring out what he wants in a relationship when he happens into a submissive-dominant entanglement with a tall, handsome biker played by Alexander Skarsgard. Soon, Melling’s Colin is obeying his lover’s every order, including by shaving himself bald and sleeping like a dog on the floor. But the “kinky-funny” screenplay, which won a prize at Cannes, makes sure we see that Colin is not stuck but growing.

While the movie’s sex scenes are “refreshingly graphic,” they’re “never used or shock value,” said Odie Henderson in The Boston Globe. “The real shock comes from how emotionally involved the characters become within the construct of their kink.” And when Colin brings his new lover
home to meet the parents, Skarsgard and Lesley Sharp, as Colin’s suburban London mom, do memorable work because “neither of them
approaches the scene in a way you’d expect.” Until the ending, which “feels a little neat,” said Zachary Barnes in The Wall Street Journal, the movie “proceeds with an assurance of tone that’s especially impressive for a first-time filmmaker handling material like this.” Harry Lighton’s debut “could have been simply shocking, revving its engine in sexed-up style. Instead, Pillion purrs.”

‘Midwinter Break’

Directed by Polly Findlay (PG-13)

★★

Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds “would be appealing to watch just fumbling for their reading glasses,” said Natalia Winkelman in The New York Times. Unfortunately, this “staid” drama about an aging Irish couple puts that claim to the test. A “slow-moving film with a sappy score and mellow mood,” Midwinter Break opens with Manville’s Stella surprising Hinds’ Gerry by arranging a spur-of-the-moment trip to Amsterdam. Alas, “precious little conflict occurs until long afterward.”

But while Polly Findlay’s adaptation of a Bernard MacLaverty novel is a “delicate” film, said Lindsey Bahr in the Associated Press, its impact can be profound “if you can get on its level.” Stella, a devout Catholic, has an ulterior motive for dragging Gerry abroad, and when she nervously proposes how she’d like to live more purposefully in retirement, “it feels earth-shattering.” This is a couple accustomed to leaving much unsaid,
including how the violence of the Troubles led them to flee Belfast years earlier for Scotland. Manville and Hinds give the movie everything they’ve got, said Caryn James in The Hollywood Reporter. In a scene in which Stella pours out her heart to a stranger, “Manville delivers one of her most magnificent performances, which is saying a lot.” Alas, the script lets them down, “not because it needs more action but because this ordinary couple’s problems seem so unsurprising, their inner lives so veiled.”