‘Wicked: For Good’ Review: Was It For Good, Though?

Anyone who’s seen Wicked on Broadway — including those who love Wicked — will tell you: The first act is stronger than the second. It contains almost all of the show’s best songs and most spectacular showstoppers. It has the fun of the central characters shifting from frenemies to besties. The second half carries a lot of preachy messages, all of the darkest scenes, and a couple cartons’ worth Wizard of Oz Easter eggs.

So the fact that Wicked: For Good marks a notable step down from the first film is not a shock. Just as a spell from the enchanted Grimmerie book can’t be undone, this outcome was inevitable and unavoidable from the moment Universal made the decision to turn the single Wicked musical into a pair of big-budget blockbusters.

In some ways, cutting the story in half might have enhanced last year’s Wicked. That felt like all of the show’s highest highs, only better — zippier, punchier, brighter. Wicked: For Good works the same way in reverse; all the low points, but worse — bleaker, slower, slathered with digital effects — because they’re not punctuated by undeniable tunes like “Defying Gravity” or “Popular,” and because director Jon M. Chu padded out Wicked’s (originally much shorter) second act to 137 minutes with several new songs and a bunch of ugly CGI action.

Universal

As in the first film, Wicked: For Good’s strongest moments all belong to stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and especially Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good. If 90 percent of directing is casting, the Chu may qualify as the director of the last two years simply for putting Erivo and Grande together. The title song this time around is a plaintive duet the two women share near the movie’s climax, as the estranged witches attempt to reconcile and express their admiration for one another. The pair’s voices are remarkable, of course, but what’s most impressive in the scene is the acting on display; the depth of emotion on both women’s faces as they make their way through the song.

“For Good” is an obvious high point, and there are a few others, including a comic fight between the two stars that captures a little of the bubbling friction that made the first Wicked movie’s rendition of “Popular” soar. But unlike the first Wicked, where Elphaba and Glinda’s journeys run largely in parallel and they appear together frequently, Erivo and Grande spend most of Wicked: For Good off on their own separate storylines. In the yearlong intermission between the films, Elphaba became an Ozian insurgent, striking at the autocratic Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) who maintains his control over the Land of Oz through deceit and enslavement of the animal population.

When the not-so-wonderful Wizard brands Elphaba a traitor, Glinda does not agree with his assessment, or approve of the way he stokes the populace’s fear of the “Wicked Witch”to tighten his own grasp on power. But she also doesn’t leave his side, because she is addicted to power herself and desperate to prove her own worth as a witch. (A page-deadening flashback pinpoints the origin of her emotional baggage.) Glinda also wants to convince the handsome guardsman Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) to marry her — but when a dude tells you he’ll be your husband “if it makes you happy,” that should ping some alarm bells that he may have his eye on someone else. (Someone green, in this case.)

Universal

On stage, Elphaba and Glinda’s separation is less of an issue because it comes in the short second act of a musical already accelerating toward its climax. In Wicked: For Good, extending a slight half of a show into a full feature requires stuffing the meager story with more filler than a cornfield scarecrow. There’s an entr'acte that recaps some of the music — and, more importantly, Glinda’s viral dance numbers — from the first film. Glinda and Elphaba both perform fine but unremarkable ballads. There’s also a full-blown action sequence where Elphaba attacks the Wizard’s minions as they build the Yellow Brick Road.

Mercifully, that scene does not end with Elphaba turning to the camera to quip “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road!” That wouldn’t have felt out of place in this movie, though. Wicked: For Good does include a moment where Elphaba declares “I’m off to see the Wizard,” one of several groan-worthy Wizard of Oz references added to this half of Wicked. Obviously these films do not exist without those old L. Frank Baum stories (and, later, Gregory Maguire’s novels), but Wicked: For Good really amps up the winking Wizard of Oz signifiers — so much so that it feels like those elements now require more of a payoff than this film is prepared to give them.

Consider Wicked: For Good’s use of the Tin Man, for example; how much he appears onscreen in this film, and how little of a resolution that character gets. At a certain point, if you’re going to make those Oz icons so central to the film, you sort of need to justify their inclusion in some way on a story level. Wicked: For Good does not.

Universal

Like the story itself, Wicked’s visual side can be split into two parts. Paul Tazewell’s costumes, Nathan Crowley’s production design, and Alice Brooks’ cinematography express a lot of Chu’s themes purely through their use of color, framing, and scale. But the two films’ digital effects, and particularly their use of a menagerie of artificial creatures and magical landscapes, repeatedly diminishes the impact of those other craftsmen’s practical work. Part of what makes “For Good” so effective is that it’s such a small, restrained moment; just two people singing together on a set, without the distractions of garish CGI castles or flying monkeys.

In fact, a lot of Wicked: For Good feels like a series of distractions designed to obfuscate the film’s one-for-the-price-of-two identity. Ultimately, the best creative argument in favor of two Wicked movies is that it let the audience spend even more time with the story’s characters and the two lead performers, who really are terrific together. When Erivo and Grande sing “For Good,” you feel the weight of their journeys across hours and hours of this epic story. But does that justify the parts of Wicked: For Good where it feels stretched into tedium? As the lyrics of the title song suggest, a change for good does not necessarily mean a change for the better.

RATING: 6/10