It’s the ultimate celebrity redemption tour, two decades in the making. In the annals of pop culture, few characters have undergone an image makeover like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Oh, she might have been vengeful and scary in “The Wizard of Oz.” But something changed – REALLY changed – on the way from the yellow brick road to the Great White Way. Every night since 2003, audiences at “Wicked” at Broadway’s Gershwin Theater have gathered to cheer as the misunderstood, green-skinned Elphaba rises on her broomstick to sing “Defying Gravity,” the enduring girl-power anthem.

How many people have seen ‘Wicked’? Rudimentary math suggests there are more than 15 million on Broadway alone. And now we have that “Wicked” the movie, director Jon M. Chu’s lush, faithful, impeccably crafted (and nearly three-hour long) ode to this origin story of Elphaba and her (eventual) best friend – Glinda, the very good and the very blonde. Welcome to Hollywood, ladies.

Before we get into what this movie gets right (those big numbers! Those costumes!), there are a few thornier issues to think about. Will this “Wicked,” powered by a soulful Cynthia Erivo (owner of one of the best singing voices in the world) and a cheerful, comedic, hair-tossing Ariana Grande, turn even musical theater haters into lovers?

Tough question. Some people just don’t believe in the musical thing, and they should be able to live freely among us. But if people who start singing delight rather than confuse you, if elaborate dance numbers in town squares and fantastic nightclubs and emerald green cities make perfect sense to you, and especially if you already love “Wicked,” then you’ll probably love it too on ‘Wicked’. this movie. If it feels like they made the best “Wicked” movie money can buy, that’s because they kind of did.

A lot of credit for that goes to Chu, who says he worked on it for so many years “Bad” that three of his five children were born during that period. Chu clearly has musical theater in his DNA, as we already knew from ‘In the Heights’. His actors don’t clumsily break into composer Stephen Schwartz’s famous pop show tunes: they run headlong into them and sometimes blow the roof off with them.

Another question: Will people be turned off when they see “To Be Continued” at the end, two hours and 40 minutes in, realizing they have to wait a year for Part 2? Also difficult. Surely this could have been one movie. But then how would they have followed “Defying Gravity,” which brings down the curtain on Act 1 (and the house) in the show? It’s hard to imagine just continuing with the plot.

Yes, the plot: We open with Grande’s Glinda descending into Munchkinland in her glittering bubble, which has been upgraded since 1939 with a comfy couch, to announce that the Wicked Witch is indeed dead.

But someone challenges Glinda: Is it true that you were her friend? Well, uh, yes, Glinda answers cautiously. Their paths crossed – back at school.

Cue opening day at Shiz University. Glinda – well, Galinda ‘with a ga’ for now – an aspiring major in wizardry, arrives in her pink suit looking like a mix of Grace Kelly and Elle Woods. She already has a fan base and a private suite.

Elphaba also arrives to help her sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) settle down. The students are shocked by her green skin. But when the imperious Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), Dean of Sorcery in Shiz, glimpses Elphaba’s untapped magical powers, the green girl becomes her prized student.

Elphaba hopes that her wizardry lessons will lead to an encounter with the all-powerful Wizard of Oz, whose glorified head is carved into the campus and who, she secretly hopes, will grant her wish to be “hazed.” She sings about this wish in “The Wizard and I”, a beautiful song that introduces Erivo’s uniquely smooth vocals.

Another upbeat song, “What is this Feeling?”, introduces the “disgusting, unadulterated disgust” between Elphaba and Glinda, forced together. These early songs have a spirited appeal, and the best is “Dancing Through Life,” a banging dance number that showcases the dashing charm of local Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey of “Bridgerton,” dripping with charm) as he proudly urges fellow students to to join him in his superficiality.

“Life is more painless for the mindless,” Bailey sings, accompanied by acrobatic dancers on enormous, coordinated “tornado wheels” in a fantastic library. “Life is less fraught when you are thoughtless.” Fiyero will develop into something else in part 2. For the time being, he woos Glinda and befriends Elphaba.

But ‘Wicked’ is about female friendship and the sudden, surprising bond between opposites Glinda and Elphaba – cheerful versus deep, dressed in pink versus black. In the gorgeous makeover number “Popular,” Galinda’s tour de force, Grande swings from the chandelier, kicks like a can-can dancer and gallops around a ravishing bedroom set with pink sequined shoes appearing out of nowhere.

Erivo’s tour de force? That would be ‘Defying Gravity’, the show’s huge signature song, which arrives now that the mood has changed to something much more ominous. Both young women are in the Emerald City, where they – or at least Elphaba, have discovered that the wizard is not powerful and beneficent, but rather Jeff Goldblum – charming and weak, with a big, dark secret.

“So if you want to find me,” Elphaba calls, after discovering the power of her broomstick, “look to the western sky.” Where exactly is she going?

Hold that thought. For exactly one year.

“Wicked,” a Universal Studios release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association “for its scary action, thematic material and brief suggestive material.” Playing time: 160 minutes. Three stars out of four.