Wicked

By the end of Wicked's 2 hours and 40 minute length, with a second part to come next year, one can be pardoned for feeling that way as the oversung, overwrought, over-frenzied musical around the land of Oz tests every bit of one's patience. While the film is adapted from a Broadway musical now running for more than 20 years, most of the songs are ear aches – and by the end, a headache.

It's a sugar-rush fantasy with the overpowering star presence of Cynthia Erivo; it basically dunks you face-down in a hyperreal ball pit of M&Ms for two and three-quarter hours. She is the film's Rushmore: charismatic, haughty and vulnerable. But this is the joke, and this is the story, and what an enjoyable spectacle it is.