It’s been a year since Jon Chu’s Wicked adaptation hit the silver screen and honestly blew audiences away. The musical has long been an approachable production that theater kids and Utah moms have devoured for decades. The first part was critically and financially successful, even I liked it a lot! Even being as long as it was (at over 2 hours 40 minutes), the people wanted to see how the second act would wrap things up.
Now, with Wicked: For Good, we get to see the story’s conclusion. When last we left the characters, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has been marked as an enemy of the Oz state. She is on the run, while often trying to help the animals keep their home. Glinda (Ariana Grande) has been the pushed-to-the-public Good Witch, where she lives comfortably, but truly wants her friendship back with Glinda.
I’d like us all to remember the last time we saw a musical. They’re big, fun, and catchy right? When the curtain drops on the first intermission, it does so with the right elements of the best cliffhangers. It leaves us wanting more. There’s typically only one more hour of a musical to go in the second act and it hopefully has the pacing that kept us so rapt in the beginning. Though, I feel that’s rarely the case. Typically, the 2nd act is the most dramatic and also rushes to get to a conclusive ending that rarely packs as much punch as the halfway point numbers. It’s in this second act that we start checking our collective watches and sitting through a reprise or two. while stifling yawns. Welcome to Wicked: For Good.
I’m not sure if there’s a world where a three-hour combined Wicked movie could feel complete, but surely it had to be a better idea than creating a five-hour filler experience. For Good has a herculean task of somehow completing the Wicked tale, adding in the heaviest moments, and tying the story into The Wizard of Oz directly. It’s not an easy task and truly is a misfire of an experiment because it doesn’t have a complete story to adapt. In short, this sequel feels like what happened with The Hobbit movies. There’s just not enough movie to justify itself.
The wonder and whimsy of Oz combined with the delivery of the characters felt somehow genuine in the first movie. Sure, the lighting has always been off with this series, but the production design made it feel like the audience was dropped right in Oz. The world felt rich. With this sequel, it comes off as hollow. The wonder feels forced, which isn’t helped by the over-reliance on the CG animals and effects.
The performances are a mixed bag. This story is about the friendship between Glinda and Elphaba. When they are in scenes together, it’s really solid. Though sadly, any attempt at humor falls flat. Erivo and Grande have the costar chemistry that really makes it feel like they have a years long friendship history behind them. When they aren’t in scenes together, their acting ability drops significantly or perhaps the scenes just feel like filler.
Both Erivo and Grande have been nominated for these roles in last year’s adaptation, and rightly so. The same level of nuance they showed before is missing now. They both play it so one-note, being sad/mad, that when there are cheerful moments, they feel like off-putting dream sequences.
Obviously, one of the biggest strengths of Wicked is the incredible music and thankfully For Good has a few numbers to bring it home. Notably, No Good Deed is a powerhouse. Erivo’s intensity is felt on screen and I sensed actual emotion in this sequel. And while it’s slightly poppier, the duo’s song, “For Good” resonates decently with the theme of the franchise.
The less said about the two original songs, the better. Glinda and Elphaba both have their own songs, and they were definitely going for a message first, music second approach. They’ll be forgotten as soon as the notes are heard.
Wicked has somehow become a phenomenon of its own even outside of Wizard of Oz. Though, sadly this second act/movie has to tie the two together and the plot quickly shoehorns as much as it can. I wish this were a brisk 90 minute movie, but I don’t think that would have helped the filmmakers create the dramatic stakes needed for this part of the story.
I didn’t hate Wicked: For Good. It’s just okay, if not a little hollow. Truly, this is the movie that I feared the first one would be. I do think fans will love it regardless, and that’s largely due to the fact that the story of Elphaba and Glinda is still done so well. Erivo and Grande have crafted versions of these characters well and are emotionally resonant. The movie got there in the end, but was a disingenuous chore to sit through. C
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