“Wicked and Wicked: For Good Are Meant to Be Watched Together!!!”
When Wicked hit theaters last year, it felt special and vibrant. It was a heartfelt reimagining placed somewhere between Broadway and the movie theater. With Wicked: For Good, director Jon M. Chu delivers not just a follow-up, but a second chapter that feels richer, and moodier. While it easily stands on its own, the real magic reveals itself when you imagine both films played back-to-back as a single, monumental epic. Wicked and Wicked: For Good transform from a two-part adaptation into something closer to The Lord of the Rings meets The Wizard of Oz. It’s a sweeping, melancholic, satisfying saga about friendship, power, lies, and the seductive ease of believing what makes us feel safe, even when it isn’t true. For anyone planning a movie marathon, the pairing becomes downright necessary. Do yourself a favor when this movie hits streaming platforms. Plan a full night of Oz mythology capped with the 1939 Wizard of Oz, and, for the brave and the nostalgic, the gloriously off-kilter Return to Oz. Treat yourself to one long, interlocking experience.
Wicked: For Good picks up 12 tide turns after the end of the first film, and the Oz we return to is not the whimsical technicolor fantasy audiences might anticipate. Chu instead leans into the darker, more politically fraught atmosphere of Act II in the stage musical: corruption, propaganda, fearmongering, and the moral rot that spreads when a society convinces itself it’s doing the right thing simply because it’s easier than facing the truth. Elphaba, played by Cynthia Erivo, knows the Wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum, is a fraud. She’s determined to expose him. Glinda, played by Ariana Grande, has become the face of Oz’s propaganda machine, and a symbol of empty optimism. The storytelling grows more introspective as it dives into messy relationship dynamics. Love, family and betrayal fills the story, which mirrors the sad truth that societies change only when illusions collapse, and not without collateral damage. What is so intriguing too, is how Chu treats this film as a bridge between Wicked and The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy never really appears, but her footsteps are everywhere. Even “No Place Like Home” is cleverly recontextualized as a quiet message of hope for the oppressed.
At the end of the day, this film and its predecessor work because Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo fully inhabit their roles and really sell their scenes. Grande’s Glinda is deeper than her sparkly exterior suggests, and her emotional arc is one of the film’s strongest elements. Erivo, meanwhile, is a force of nature. She sings real life into the film. Their chemistry delivers exactly the tears and catharsis you should expect. I took my seven year old with me and she sat teary-eyed clutching my arm while Elphaba fought the good fight. She and I watched the first film the night prior, so she was ready for a finale. Here’s the thing, on its own Wicked: For Good is strong, combined with Wicked … it becomes something wonderful. The strengths multiply. The character arcs feel complete, the themes more profound, the emotional payoff more earned. It is simply a better experience. On its own It’s a 7/10, back to back bumps it up to an 8/10.
