Wicked: For Good Review

Wicked: For Good was always going to be a rougher ride than Wicked, the musical sensation of 2024. As fans of the Broadway play have warned, the second part is a bit of a buzzkill. Where the first film played almost like Mean Girls in Munchkinland, this sequel is heavier, moodier, and stuffed with more political allegory than one can reasonably digest in a campy musical. The songs seem to bleed into one another, with hardly any of the bite and uniqueness of the first album. And there is simply not enough of Ariana Grande as Galinda doing that delightful hair toss.

Wicked: For Good begins years after the green-skinned, magic-abled Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) flees Oz on her broomstick under threat from the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his army of flying monkeys. Her attempts to expose the Wizard as a fraud and free the Oz's animal-citizens who are being systematically subjugated have not gone far. Meanwhile, the rumour mill of Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) has worked overtime to paint Elphaba as a spell-spewing wicked witch out to kill the people of Oz. Galinda and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) are sympathetic to Elphaba, but the couple is torn about their public roles in Oz as "Good" witch and her handsome soon-to-be-husband to join the fight.

Beneath the gumdrop visuals of tulip fields, yellow brick roads and couture-level costumes, Wicked is packed with Big ideas. In the doings of the Wizard, it explores how a populist leader uses misinformation and propaganda to hold onto power, giving the people a villain to hate. A travel ban on animals and munchkins is Oz's version of racial discrimination, and one that hits close to home in today's geopolitical environment.

At the end of Wicked, Elphaba's soaring exit-number, Defying Gravity, shows her in full rebel mode as fierce, untouchable, brimming with purpose. In the opening scenes of For Good, Fiyero is afraid that the wizard wants to kill her. But in a narrative jolt, when she meets, the Wizard is sweet-talked back into Oz. It's one of many moments where the movie's stage roots peek through. On Broadway, the episodic, talky structure works, but on screen these abrupt switches diffuse the momentum of the story.

The heart of the film, its emerald core, is the messy and tender friendship between Galinda and Elphaba. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo spark off each other with such layered affection that their scenes swing effortlessly from playful mockery to full-blown wrestling-on-the-floor fights to gazing into each other's eyes and sobbing in each other's arms.

It definitely helps if you grew up with The Wizard of Oz, like the legends of Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, because Wicked: For Good leans heavily on your familiarity with these myths. When the pieces snap into place, there is a nostalgic thrill, a sense of watching lore being written in real time. For newcomers to the franchise, however, the film can feel disjointed and mysterious.

Still, when Grande and Erivo sing "For Good", the movie seems to remember what it's about. Not witches or wizards or who's good or wicked but the profound friendship between two women who've changed each other for the better. In those moments, the spell of the movie works.