Wicked: For Good (2025)

At the end of my review of the first Wicked film, I mentioned how I worried about the fact that, as someone who grew up a fan of the musical, the best songs were always in the first half. That is not to say that the second half hasn’t got its share of good tunes, but it is hard to compete against the likes of “Defying Gravity”, “Dancing through Life”, and “Popular” (which I did a spot on lip sync version to as a camp counselor this past summer. Just saying.)

Now, after a yearlong intermission, we are back in Oz with Wicked: For Good, and I regret to say that my fears were realized: It was not just the songs that did not live up to the first half, but the second half as a whole. 

Following the events of the first film (it was unclear how much time passed, but Wiki said five years, so I will go with that), we see construction being done on the yellow brick road via an animal work force. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) arrives as animals are being mistreated, despite being the face of evil in Oz thanks to the propaganda of Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh, always a great actress, but her singing is just not there) and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). They are busy in promoting Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) as “Glinda the Good” with her boyfriend/fiance Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), now captain of the Oz Guard (or whatever it was called), although his interests maybe elsewhere…Mean while Nessa (Marissa Bode) has taken over as Governor of Munchkin Land (her father is seen dying at the end of the first film) while still with Boq (Ethan Slater).

If you have seen the stage musical (or the trailer), you know that this leads up to Dorothy’s eventual arrival in Oz. This is somewhat of an alternative reality of the original story by L. Frank Baum, for trying to piece this together with the 1939 original would be too arduous. Yet it would also prove hard not to, since that film is the ultimate definition of a hollywood classic. Either way, it is inevitable that other familiar faces are revealed by the end.

Director Jon M. Chu knows how to do spectacle in his films (aside from the first Wicked, he also did Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights). The problem here is that, in trying to apply some pomp and circumstance, he has too much of the latter and not the former. Well, not entirely, as there are some action set pieces (one of which starts off the film right away), but I found it lacking a lot more dancing and choreography, which one comes to expect from a musical.

I mentioned the songs already, and it is now known that there are two newly added songs to the mix. “The Girl in the Bubble” (sung by Glinda) is at least interesting in how Chu shoots it to look like it is done in one long take. The other song is sung by Elphaba, and it is titled “No Place Like Home.” Do I need to go further with that one on how borderline cringe it is (the idea of it, not the performance).

Parents, if your kids saw the original, they can see this one. There is one scene that shows two characters who have slept together, but nothing is shown.

Did I leave this film disappointed? Yes. Still, I find myself just barely recommending it mainly because of Erivo and (especially) Grande. They don’t share as much time together on screen as they did in the first, but when at least one of them is on screen, my attention held. Theirs is the real love story (whenever I listen to “For Good”, I always think I’m about to hear “because I loved you” instead of “because I knew you”).  It is marvelous to realize that these two truly miraculous vocal talents are both barely five feet tall. That was the same for another actress named Judy Garland.

At one point in the film, Elphaba says something that I wish the makers of the film as a whole took to heart.

“Good can’t just be a word. It has to mean something.”

Overall: