IT AIN’T EASY BEING GREEN

Yes, you read that right. The long-awaited movie version of the Broadway smash hit (still going strong in year 23) encompasses only the first act of the theatrical version. “Wicked” fans will have to wait an entire year to see how the filmic story plays out.

And yet Part One runs an astonishing 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Still, it covers a lot of ground for someone like me whose association with the Oz story is limited to the now-classic 1939 movie with Dorothy and her three Munchkin-meeting chums.

This time around, we are told an origin story based on the best-selling book by Gregory Maguire.

Born with green skin, Elphaba, who will one day morph into the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda (not a typo), who will be the Good Witch Glinda, meet at university and become roommates, but not before they both are smitten with handsome Prince Fiyero, played by an electric and sometimes scene-stealing Jonathan Bailey.

Elphaba, by virtue of her off-putting appearance, and played with quiet strength by Cynthia Erivo, is an immediate outcast on campus. And the story here deals sensitively with her otherness. Her cotton-candy opposite, Galinda, played by pop star Ariana Grande, at first suggests a spoiled rich girl who knows nothing of hardship or deprivation.

But she shows a bit of bravery by siding with her strangely withdrawn roomie and giving her a makeover.

The boarding school is overseen by a mysterious headmistress played by Michelle Yeoh, and it isn’t long before she reveals her true intentions toward Elphaba. And her sinister plan involves an invitation to meet the Mighty Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City.

It’s here I have to say my favorite part of the movie has nothing to do with the singing and dancing, of which there is almost too much, but with the emerald-green, Art Deco-inspired train that whisks Elphaba and Galinda to their fateful meeting. It is a miracle of mad invention.

To say any more would spoil the fun. But parents be warned: “Wicked” is not a live action “Frozen,” with that animated film’s frothy do-goodism. This iteration of the Oz saga has some scenes that might be too intense, even too violent, for children under the age of six.

But adults, especially fans of the theatrical juggernaut, will come away dazzled by the spectacle of a “Wicked” good time.