Alex Wheeler Movie Ops

As if turning a beloved musical into a blockbuster film wasn’t hard enough, director Jon M. Chu had to do it twice with Wicked. The first, last year’s Wicked, was a rousing success, surprising nearly everyone with its maximalist charm. You felt no stage limitations as it bounded through the meeting of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), soon to be the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda (Ariana Grande), the future Glinda the Good. It was set years before the familiar events in The Wizard of Oz, and it brashly imagined a backstory that reframed Elphaba as a revolutionary targeted by the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and Glinda as her less-than-loyal friend. And now, one year later, comes the conclusion of their story, which finally ties into the events we know.

Wicked: For Good jumps forward several years, with Elphaba continuing her guerrilla campaign against the Wizard and Glinda remaining comfortably by his side. The rest of the cast has dispersed, including Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode), who meets her fate when Dorothy comes to Oz. But before the film catches up to The Wizard of Oz, the entire cast must be clunkily positioned as key figures in Dorothy’s journey, which proves to be a deadly constraint.

Much of the joy of the first film was in its surprises, not only the reimaging of familiar characters but the wild freedom Chu and the rest of the team brought to the production. The staging of the songs, in particular, blew past anything possible on a stage. It’s ending number, Defying Gravity, swirled through the air in triumphant defiance and brought the house down. No song comes close to that in For Good, or to Fiyero’s romp through the library in Dancing Through Life, or to Glinda’s perky Popular. The story does take a more somber turn in its second outing, but that doesn’t excuse the lackluster energy brought to decent songs like As Long as You’re Mine and No Good Deed. The second part’s only huge number, For Good, comes close to the satisfaction of so many of the previous film’s numbers, in no small part because it leans into the bond between its two leads.

Erivo and Grande continue to be a perfect pairing, bouncing off each other with all the electricity required by their prickly bond. In For Good, though, they are largely separate, and the film suffers immensely for it. Each still performs the hell out of their roles, but the sparks are stifled by isolation. The humor of Glinda’s self-obsession falls flat without Elphaba to roll her eyes, and Elphaba becomes too rigid without Glinda to knock her off course. There is, simply put, less for them to do, which stands out starkly because we’ve seen their potential.

No, its stars aren’t what let For Good down. It’s the story, which I’ve heard is also a letdown in the musical, but I’ve not seen that source material. Even so, an adaptation gives you the opportunity to right some missteps, and there’s little chance this sputtering, silly story is an improvement on anything.

Getting everyone in place for their tie-ins to The Wizard of Oz becomes a series of isolated absurdities, with each chain of events casting aside understandable emotions and events. The worst is Fiyero’s, whose fate hinges on a flying witch and a bunch of flying monkeys leaving him behind instead of picking him up when they make an aerial exit. Serious developments are continuously laughable and somehow rushed within the film’s excessive run time, making the entire debacle a mystifying letdown. Where did the swift movement between characters go? The frivolous sidebars? The fun? It’s all been stifled by the story it’s beholden to, no longer freely reimagining but stiffly falling in line.

The first part of the blockbuster is still a joyous triumph. It works well enough as a standalone piece, wrapping up its story with the rousing promise of Elphaba rejecting expectations and limitations to save Oz. Perhaps you shouldn’t follow the story any further, because Wicked: For Good doesn’t deliver on the first film’s promise.

Release: In theaters now
Director: Jon M. Chu
Writers: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
Cast: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Colman Domingo, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum