How does wickedness come to pass in the final part? Awkwardly. But with flair.
Having been outcast from society, Elphaba is now a rebel, hoping to reveal the Wizard’s true machinations. Meanwhile, Glinda is titled “The Good”, and revels in her social climbing. But these two friends are fated to clash again and again. Can they put differences aside and survive the storm?
This second and final part of the Wicked adaptation is, of course, directed by Jon M. Chu. It sees Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, and more return to their roles. Once again, though, it bears repeating: Wicked: For Good, is the second half of a movie adaptation of a musical by Stephen Schwartz. A musical that is an adaptation of the book Wicked by Gregory Maguire from 1995. Which is a revisionist take on the 1939 technicolour movie The Wizard of Oz, which in turn was an adaptation of the 1900 book of the same name by L. Frank Baum.
It takes such a long time to relay all of that, but I feel it is important to acknowledge the utterly strangled vine of interpretation going on here. Frankly, this complexity and dilution of the source makes me more sympathetic towards Wicked as a creative endeavour than I am with… say… Disney’s live action Maleficent and its sequel. I am, though, quite uneducated in both books and in the musical.
In the review for part one, Wicked, I wondered how exactly we go from sympathetic Wicked Witch to cackling Wicked Witch we all know. The answer is… not very well.
Like the movie’s two parts, this review is going to be in two parts. Quite literally my thought process after seeing it. My first thoughts were generally negative, so we go from there.
Wicked: For Good, picks up where part one left us. With a host of characters in play and the looming advent of not only Dorothy’s arrival, but Elpheba’s tragic fate. Snared up into this host of characters is Nessarose (Elpheba’s sister, played by Marissa Bode) her munchkin partner Boq (Ethan Slater) and Madam Morrible (what a name, played by Michelle Yeoh) They all have important roles in pushing the plot along while our leads, Glinda (Grande) and Elpheba (Erivo) struggle with their standing in the world. Mostly Grande sitting on stairs and being sad. Some of these important roles may surprise you.
But there are two big issues for me. These are probably spoilers, so you can skip this paragraph (until after the next image) if you wish. First: part one had a lot of time and energy devoted to political intrigue, social inequality, prejudice, laid on surprisingly thick, but effectively. But the crux of the matter in part two is apparently… Glinda and Elpheba like the same boy. Really? That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back? That’s the big, terrible event? And off the back of this, is Elpheba and Fiyero (Bailey) erm, getting hot and bothered with each other. There were laughs in the audience. People were leaving the theatre (probably temporarily) while it was going on. They are, of course, allowed to be in love, but the implementation on screen felt very hokey.
These are the biggest issues. The rest are issues that I realized weren’t actually issues. This is a part two. As such, rating it in isolation is difficult. This entry feels more fragmented; with shorter scenes and bigger gaps in time passing, than the first. But this is the final act of a story, and likely if you were to watch them together, a lot of these pacing issues won’t be so apparent. As it is, though, it didn’t stand as well on its own as 2024’s Wicked did. In a lot of ways, you could fill in the gap between 2024’s entry and The Wizard of Oz yourself.
Now for the good (no pun intended) and the odd. Like part one, this film still has a gorgeous look. The characters are still well performed, with the material given. The story also has some surprisingly dark turns. While we are talking about a PG (PG-13) movie, there are some scary scenes of transformation and threat that I was not expecting. It was cool. The music is still well performed and staged, although not as impactful as part one.
The odd, is how the film struggled with melding with the original 1939 movie. Having Dorothy portrayed as some sort of unstoppable harbinger of death; faceless, or seen in shadow, or just footsteps, is hilarious. I have no idea if it is meant to be kinda funny or if it is meant to be terrifying. But if it is the latter, it failed for me. Still, not a negative exactly.
Overall, I can only say it definitely warrants watching alongside the first part, if you aren’t keenly familiar with the musical. It will work much better as a whole; the negatives on part two are mostly from it being in isolation.
