Movie Review: ‘Wicked: For Good’

Tweet
Wicked: For Good is the epic conclusion to last year’s hit musical that gives a new and different perspective to the “witches” from The Wizard of Oz. This may sound cheesy and unoriginal, but it is true that Wicked: For Good is wonderful. The music is amazing and catchy, the visuals are awe inspiring, the actors are fantastic, and the story elicits a wide range of emotional responses. This movie shows the powerful, harmful effects of mis/disinformation that turned an otherwise decent person into the “wicked” villain that many of us probably grew up watching. If you love the first part (or the original Wizard of Oz) and musicals in general, you will probably enjoy this movie as well.

Part two opens a few years after the events of the first film, with Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) hiding while trying to reveal the truth about the powerless Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), and Glinda (Ariana Grande) working with the Wizard and Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) to keep the Ozian’s spirits up while they trash her friend. Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode), has become Governor of Munchkinland. Boq (Ethan Slater) works for Nessa, and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) has become Captain of the Guard due to his desire to find Elphaba before anyone else. Neither Boq nor Fiyero are truly happy in their roles, which leads them and others down a dark yet familiar path that I will not spoil here for those that haven’t seen the original musical or the trailers, though it is not that difficult to figure out.

The music is beautiful, and all the performances are spectacular. I like musicals, although I do not see a lot of them, and this was one of the best I have seen. I especially enjoyed the camerawork during Glinda’s “The Girl in the Bubble” song. And “Wonderful” highlighted the sad truth that people only see what they want, and it is tough to change their minds (very timely, I think). Cynthia and Ariana deserve all the accolades they can get; they are fantastic musical artists and magnificently brought these characters to life.

The film’s story incorporates the events depicted in the original Wizard of Oz movie (or maybe the original book which I never read) as Dorothy does appear, but the film does not change the focus from Elphaba and Glinda, so Dorothy is mostly shown leaving the scene as it starts or off in the distance, much like her brief appearance in the first movie. If you never saw/read the original movie/story, it may feel like you are missing a part of the story, but it was interesting to see how they told the other side of the story and reasons for why those events happened without having to fully re-tale the original.

Technically, people could watch this without seeing part one, just like people could watch The Matrix Revolutions, Back to the Future Part III, and Avengers: Endgame without seeing Reloaded, Part II, and Infinity War, respectively, but I would highly recommend watching both if you have not seen the first. Wicked: For Good does a good job of reintroducing all the main characters quickly while continuing with the plot, but you have missed a lot of character development if you skipped Wicked.