So, Wicked was a pretty big hit last year, wasn’t it? It made over $750 million at the box office, won a plethora of awards, and earned a devoted following that revitalized the idea of what a movie musical could be. It’s still too soon to tell just how important Wicked will be in the annals of film history, but it certainly left an impact in the minds of musical lovers. Now, almost exactly one year later, John M. Chu is back with the second part of his adaptation, Wicked: For Good.
If you’ll recall, I wasn’t exactly beaming in my praise for the original film. I acknowledged that Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were great singers and gave it their all for their songs, even if their acting was a bit iffy, and the production design was the best thing about the film. I mean, it did win an Oscar for Best Production Design. But there was undeniably a sense of bloat to the movie that made it drag and made me question where the sequel would go in terms of scale and spectacle. After all, most people tend to remember Act 1 of Wicked way more than Act 2, so Wicked: For Good didn’t necessarily need to justify its existence, but rather find a way to be a worthy follow-up.
Well, guess what? While most of my predictions tend to be wrong, I can at least say I was 100% right about my assessment of Wicked: For Good last year. It’s the same song and dance as the first film, only not as good, and with a lot of the wonder and shine having worn off. Called it!
Wicked: For Good
Director: John M. Chu
Release Date: November 21, 2025 (Theatrical)
Rating: PG
Some time had passed since the events of the first film, and now Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has been branded the Wicked Witch of the West by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his press secretary/former headmistress of Shiz University, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). All of Oz is afraid of her, and most of her friends from Shiz University have fallen victim to the propaganda. All except for her former best friend, Glinda (Ariana Grande), who assists in the propaganda against her in public but advocates for her in private. And then there’s Fiyero (Johnathan Bailey), who also serves as the captain of the guard for the Wizard, but is devout and loyal to Elphaba and would drop everything to help her. So with the deck mostly stacked against her, how can Elphaba bring the Wizard’s misdeeds to light, and is it even at all possible to redeem her name?
Structurally, it makes sense for Wicked: For Good to begin where it does, but that has less to do with John M. Chu’s script and more with how the musical separated its first and second acts. We’re immediately reintroduced to our major conflict and see how things have changed in the time since. The animals that Elphaba fought tirelessly to free have now been fully subjugated. The propaganda machine was successful in discrediting her. Even if you never saw the first film or forgot what happened in the year since, it’s a great jumping-on point for newcomers and veterans that has a fair amount of potential.
It’s when the film begins to chug along, a lot of the decisions made by John M. Chu in the first film begin to appear like mistakes. Since so much effort was put into the larger-than-life musical numbers, the characters outside Elphaba and Glinda feel barely present. Characters like Boq (Ethan Slater) and Nessarose (Marissa Bode) have more dedicated roles in the story here, but because they barely had anything to do in the first film, their arcs and characterization feel poorly developed. Not only that, but Madame Morrible has been simplified into a one-note mustache-twirling villain, and the few new characters that are introduced here, like Colman Domingo’s Brrr the Lion, have nothing to do. Because of this, the big dramatic moments that Wicked: For Good hypes end up feeling deflated and hollow.
Copyright: Universal
There’s no denying that Wicked had a certain wow factor to it. It looked expensive, and so much effort was put into the production that even as someone who was lukewarm to the film, I had to praise the dedication to bringing Oz to life. That wow factor isn’t in Wicked: For Good. The sets feel much smaller and more confined, and the dour tone makes the sets feel all the less impressive. There’s nothing immediately eye-catching as our first look at the Emerald City, or watching Elphaba take to the sky in “Defying Gravity.” There are glimpses of cool moments, like when Elphaba, Glinda, and the Wizard dance in the Wizard’s chamber, but it feels perfunctory and only serves to inject some much-needed color into a movie that feels so dour.
There are two big problems that I keep coming back to with Wicked: For Good. The first, and probably most notable, is its pacing. The first film had this problem too, padding out its runtime with comedic bits that felt more at home in Mean Girls, but while the sequel is shorter, it feels much longer. Key moments are broken up with little bits that don’t matter in the grand scheme. Seeing Nessarose oppress the Munchkins should be bigger than it is, but it’s quickly brushed aside in favor of focusing on half-formed character drama. The ending, in particular, feels like it drags because of how little actually happens in it as we wait for the characters to come to conclusions that we, the audience, realized back in the first film.
The second problem is how Wicked: For Good consistently undermines its own potential. For a movie that tries to talk about how Elphaba is a freedom fighter trying to convince the Land of Oz of the Wizard’s deception, very little is actually done with it. No one ever brings up how the animals have effectively become slave labor for the Ozians. The oppression of the Munchkins happens off-screen. Glinda has no moral qualms with imparting the Wizard’s propaganda even though she knows it’s wrong. It’s a story that presents itself as a political commentary and could mire it for some juicy exchanges and set pieces, but doesn’t actually want to say anything about it. It’s toothless and simplifies its messages to the lowest common denominator.
Copyright: Universal
And look, not every movie needs to be a deconstruction of revolution in the same way that One Battle After Another was, but when Wicked: For Good consistently ignores its own messaging, that’s a pretty big problem. The film doesn’t even have songs to fall back on this time. Without showstoppers like “Defying Gravity,” “What Is This Feeling?,” or “Popular,” Wicked: For Good is more reliant than ever on the few songs there are. Sure, “No Good Deed” is a great song, and “For Good” is fine enough, but most of the songs barely register. There are no elaborate dance numbers this time, so the film is now forced to rely on its plot to keep viewers engaged, which is its weakest element.
While the supporting cast flounders, Cynthia Erivo, at the very least, manages to take control whenever she’s onscreen. Elphaba is always the most interesting and powerful person in the room, and she knows it. Erivo finds a way to balance the jadedness Elphaba has developed in the time following the first film, but still has the quiet kindness that made her so likable. While I may not have loved her performance in the first film, I can at least now see why people were praising her so much back then. If anything, her strong performance only highlights how little presence Ariana Grande has when she can’t fall back on her vocals or her self-absorbed comedic schtick from the first film. Without it, she simply doesn’t have the charisma to take charge of any scene she’s in.
Reception to Wicked: For Good has been more negative than the first film, and it’s not hard to see why. Following up on Wicked was going to be a tough act, mostly because John M. Chu put so many eggs into Wicked’s basket that there were few left for the sequel. The characters, outside Elphaba, weren’t as interesting, the musical numbers weren’t as eye-catching, the message of the film felt perfunctory and halfhearted, and the padding to make it nearly as long as the already bloated first film only served to hurt it. Together, this duology took a two-and-a-half-hour musical and made it into a five-hour cinematic experience that satisfied families and musical theater nerds, but nobody else.
