‘Wicked: For Good’ Review: The Finale of a Needlessly Two-Part Movie Musical Adaptation Doesn’t Go Out on a High Note

Stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande continue to turn in excellent work, but this second part to the beloved musical wasn't worth waiting an entire year for.

The standard time for Broadway intermissions ranges between 15 and 20 minutes, long enough to stretch your legs, maybe grab a snack, and hit the washroom. An entire year? Why, that’s more than enough time for all of that and more, including forgetting some of the most important plot points and character machinations of any sort of spectacle, even the major ones. Such is the case with Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked: For Good,” the second offering in his planned two-film adaptation of the beloved musical “Wicked.”

In preparation for my return to the Land of Oz, I caught up on my review of the first film. I refreshed myself on my big quibbles: That it was hard to know what any of these people really wanted (even if they did sing about that stuff a lot) and that Oz as a location felt far too flat, lifeless, and confusing. The smaller ones, too: “Odd missteps, hinky plotholes, and confounding questions,” many of them about the very nature of magic in this world. I made sure to note the things I did enjoy, particularly the performances of both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, plus some whimsically mounted musical sequences.

In “Wicked: For Good,” there’s plenty of continuity, even if it’s of the disappointing variety. The things that missed the mark the first time, well, they still do. The things that worked in “Wicked”? They still do, but only a clock-tick better. If nothing else, and even as a person not steeped in “Wicked” lore and admiration, the casting of Erivo and Grande is ne plus ultra, and the deep respect and love the performers share for each other, on and off the screen, really keeps this particular trifle afloat. Their Elphaba and Glinda form the heart and soul of this story, and it’s difficult to imagine another duo personifying that better (or with better singing).

Despite drawing out the combined running time of both films to nearly five hours (the musical runs two hours and 45 minutes, with a 15 minute intermission), big questions still remain (and they will persist). But Chu’s choice to kick off “Wicked: For Good” with little in the way of catch-up is a refreshing one, albeit short-lived in its boldness. The film opens in impressive fashion: It’s some months after Elphaba (Erivo) and Glinda (Grande) chose distinctly different paths during a heartbreaking parting in the Emerald City, and both remain firmly locked into their respective roles.

Elphaba is now fully the Wicked Witch of the West — aided in part by the tireless work of her former mentor Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), who has dedicated herself to spreading horrific misinformation to all Ozians, in service to propping up a despot loser (Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, bored) — which sees her taking on wild missions in service to her aims to unseat the Wizard and undo his many misdeeds. Top of mind for Elphaba is freeing the Animals, who have been conscripted into terrible slavery, mostly because the Wizard keenly understands that to keep people together, a common enemy (real or imagined) is the true golden ticket.

As a broom-riding Elphaba sweeps over the currently-in-construction Yellow Brick Road to free the Animals, it’s hard not to feel a big thrill. Here’s our heroine, doing the tough work (with a big dash of magic) to make things right in Oz. As the Animals — in this case, massive bison-like folks — fight their way free, it’s also hard not to be very much on their side. We’re rooting for you, Elphie, and what kind of story would this be in, what sort of fairy tale, if you didn’t succeed on your altruistic mission? Well.

If Elphaba has embraced her role as Oz’s baddie, Glinda has taken things a step further as the land’s number one goody-two-shoes. As Glinda the Good Witch, she spends her days swanning around Oz (soon enough, in her very own bubble), trying to cheer up a population that has been made to blindly fear her own best friend. It’s a horrible, horrible gig if you can get it. Both Elphaba and Glinda have been forced into roles that, while they may generally suit them (Elphaba is a natural fighter and leader, Glinda places real value on making people feel good), only really serve to divide, scare, and hurt. However will this be worked out?

Two hours-plus later, the answer is, well, quite a bit like the beloved stage musical, just with a couple new songs (both from Stephen Schwartz, including “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble”), some curiously flat staging, and the continued question, why is this in two parts? As one established fan of the musical commented to me after her screening, “no plot but it somehow goes on forever.” Another sagely noted that Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox’s script (itself based on Holzman’s own musical book) has taken all of the musical’s laugh lines and “turned them into deadly serious ones.”

That’s not to say that there is not serious stuff afoot here, and Chu and his writers aren’t at all afraid of digging into the terrible political implications of dishonest messaging, violent politicking, raising charlatans to power, and abusing those who are somehow “different,” but it butts heads with the lighter stuff at every turn. Yes, it’s hard to feel too seriously about a film that includes a song with the lyrics “There are bridges you cross/You didn’t know you crossed/Until you’ve crossed.” At what point did this cross into gobbledygook, we wonder?

While this entry into the franchise, by necessity, has to expand further out into the wider world of Oz, it often feels bound up in the places we’ve already been. The Emerald City and Munchinkland still figure prominently, and even good ol’ Shiz University appears in flashback (unnecessary, along with another flashback to Glinda’s charmed childhood). Brief forays to Elphaba’s forest hideout are a welcome change of scenery (as the location of a much-vaunted love scene between her and Jonathan Bailey’s Fiyero, the less said, the better), as is another visit to a far-off stretch of the Yellow Brick Road, but these change-ups are few and far between, and so very missed.

Even scenes that involve bigger explorations of our known spaces, including a number set in the Emerald City, feel somehow off, in thrall to odd blocking that doesn’t allow the audience to see the full scope of a location and weirdly obscure key focal points. Yes, in the big musical sequence in which we get a bigger taste of the force of the Ozians’ fear (“March of the Witch Hunters”) and the rage of Ethan Slater’s Boq, perhaps it would be nice to see a facial expression or two. You won’t.

The same applies to a key sequence in which Fiyero is forever altered, and which appears to have been shot from five miles down the Yellow Brick Road. If we want to see more, it shouldn’t be because we’re seeing so much less than is absolutely necessary. Yet another shot of sweeping tulip fields does not a true trip to Oz — or “Wicked” — make.

The same quibbles, but just writ larger (and, yes, longer). Still, what holds these two films together is difficult to deny: the power and talent of leads Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. Both of their characters are firmly boxed in to their roles in Oz, and yet Erivo and Grande never feel so constrained, either when it comes to their heart-breaking acting work or their soaring lyrical stylings.

Much like “Wicked,” “Wicked: For Good” works its way up to a massive duet between the pair, so emotionally resonant than even the most wicked of audience members will still likely shed a tear (the song is, of course, “For Good”). It’s an unmitigated high note, but it’s a lonely one indeed. Is it alone worth the wait? Maybe, why couldn’t the entire film feel that way?

Grade: B-

Universal Pictures will release “Wicked: For Good” in theaters on Friday, November 21.

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