Wicked: For Good (dir. Jon M. Chu)

By: Adam Freed

Very few films unite the moviegoing public the way that Wicked did only a year ago.  From far and wide people flocked to Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical for myriad reasons.  Green-clad fathers brought their pink-bedazzled daughters to celebrate the undeniable power of femininity.  The curious live theater crowd came to litigate Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo and levy judgement as to their ability to hold a candle to Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.  First dates bought tickets because it seemed a safe choice.  Grandparents took their grandkids for a second time over the holidays.  The LGBTQIA+ community found refuge in a cast that represented them in the best possible way.  Wicked taught teen boys that it was ok to love a musical.  It reminded the elderly of the magical feeling of  returning to a movie theater again.  And everyone, from all over the world, came to celebrate the music of Stephen Swartz.  In many ways, what Chu (Crazy Rich Asians), Erivo (Widows, Harriet) and Grande (Don’t Look Up) accomplished was to set an impossible standard with the first half of an epic story that garnered 10 Academy Award Nominations and decimated audiences in its waning moments by uncorking Cynthia Erivo’s otherworldly performance of “Defying Gravity” just prior to rolling credits.  But that was then, and now Jon M. Chu and his gifted gang of yellow-brick artisans are tasked with finding a way to hold themselves to the standard of their own creation.

“Defying Gravity” is to Wicked what the Trinity Test was to Oppenheimer (2023).  Both stories are somehow expected to continue after a demonstration of unfathomable power, but how can they possibly?  Just as Christopher Nolan’s midcentury epic suffered from anticlimax in its third act, as is the case for Wicked: For Good.  Nowhere in Chu’s musical sequel does the film, its characters, or narrative, come anywhere near the level of apex performance that was captured a year ago.  The result is a sequel that presents as inferior to its predecessor in almost every measurable way.  Despite the undeniable allure of its gifted cast, Wicked: For Good provides its supporting talent so little room to roam.  Much of the lightheartedness and humor in the original provided by Bowen Yang (SNL) and Bronwyn James (How to Train Your Dragon) is now crammed into a single afterthought of a scene.  Even Grande’s Glinda, the driving force behind much of the original film’s playfulness, is trapped in the seriousness of the story’s proceedings, rendering Wicked: For Good as dour and heavy.  There is a clunky attempt made to lighten the proceedings slightly with a tonally askew romantic encounter and a confoundingly out of place fight scene, neither of which do much to rescue Chu’s film from the mediocrity in which it is mired.

Despite its flaws, Wicked: For Good still shows sense enough to play to its strengths.  The conclusion to the Oz origins story finds its musical rhythm on a pair of occasions, first with a goosebump-inducing performance of “No Good Deed” in which Erivo is allowed to dig deep into her inspiring vocal register and remind audiences of Elphaba’s passion and power.  Thematically there is a great deal of depth in Erivo’s performance that should once again gain Academy attention.  Likely to evolve into the film’s lasting memory though is the somber and emotionally resonant duet “For Good” in which Grande and Erivo allow for their characters to digest the result of their considerable story arc together.  There is a restrained but poignant resignation in the Stephen Swartz composition that plays as a loving goodbye, to the beloved characters, to the Wicked franchise, and to Oz.  The world will not soon forget all of the good that Jon M. Chu and his team have done, by bringing the Gregory McGuire novel and subsequent Stephen Swartz musical to the big screen.  Glinda and Elphaba are likely to become canonized iterations of feminine empowerment for generations to come, a fact that will far outlast the fading memory of an underwhelming sequel that failed to live up to impossible expectations.

Target Score 6/10 - While Wicked: For Good glistens is a few of the right places, Jon M. Chu’s dark and brooding sequel fails to deliver the same punch as its far superior predecessor.