Is Wicked: For Good Any Good?
Wicked: For Good is out on November 21, giving the fans (who never caught the Broadway musical) the conclusion to the story of Elphaba and Glinda’s romance-friendship. While the first film earned massive amounts of goodwill with over $700 million at the box office and scored ten Oscar nominations, critics can’t seem to agree on whether or not the sequel defies gravity or is no good deed. Some critics are calling it “slick and shiny” in appreciation of a big-budget movie musical that aims to entertain. Others find that the choice to break the musical Wicked into two parts hamstrung the second film with worse songs and an unclear plot. One thing they all agree on: Ariana Grande’s performance as Glinda is fantastifying.
“Wicked: For Good is Ariana Grande’s movie. And the film knows it, bending toward her every chance it gets. If the first Wicked centered Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the shy outcast whose discovery of her magical powers and the sinister machinery behind the Land of Oz led to her being branded the Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked: For Good focuses intently on her opposite number and best friend, Glinda (Grande), now positioned by the powers that be as the good (but secretly powerless) witch who can keep the people happy and placated as their world slides into paranoid dictatorship. Many of those who saw Wicked onstage were understandably curious about how splitting the story into two movies would function. The second half of the stage musical in no way feels as though it would lend itself to a complete work. It’s quicker, looser, more fragmented, relying for its cohesion not just on what happened in the first half but also on references to the original Wizard of Oz, whose tale it shadows (and recontextualizes) with brief flashes of Dorothy Gale and her friends’ classic adventure. But director Jon M. Chu has somehow pulled it off. Wicked: For Good is shorter than the first film and, while it may be a step back in terms of spectacle, it’s a leap forward in (go ahead, laugh) subtlety and emotion. My audience was audibly sobbing by the end.” —Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
“The doubts that surfaced when it was first announced that Jon M. Chu’s screen adaptation of Wicked was to be released in two parts are not exactly erased by the two hours-plus of this second installment. But it’s safe to assume the millions of fans who have made the blockbuster stage musical a global phenomenon won’t be complaining … Glinda’s song provides intimate access in a moment of personal crisis, as she takes an honest look at her priorities and privilege while locating her moral compass. Grande floods it with so much feeling that it humanizes and enriches the character and, by extension, the whole movie.” —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
“Even the staunchest defenders of Wicked, the stage musical about the tragic origins of The Wizard of Oz’s Witch of the West, would have to concede that it peaks just before the interval. So Universal’s decision to split their screen adaptation in two always meant that even in a best-case scenario, part two was going to be a bit stingy and thin. While the end result isn’t quite the worst-case scenario some of us were dreading, it’s still a deeply annoying one … What makes it so frustrating is that director Jon M. Chu is an established musicals master; his In the Heights is a modern classic of the form. But the corporate stretch-it-out-and-wring-it-dry approach here has been deadening. Call the whole benighted enterprise Wicked: For Ill.” —Robbie Collin, the Telegraph
“The things that missed the mark the first time, well, they still do. The things that worked in Wicked? They still do, but only a clock-tick better. If nothing else, and even as a person not steeped in Wicked lore and admiration, the casting of Erivo and Grande is ne plus ultra, and the deep respect and love the performers share for each other, on and off the screen, really keeps this particular trifle afloat. Their Elphaba and Glinda form the heart and soul of this story, and it’s difficult to imagine another duo personifying that better (or with better singing).” —Kate Erbland, IndieWire
“The film is, in its essence, an ode to eternal friendship. Its heart comes near the end when the witches are about to part once more and Grande and Erivo sing For Good. The camera captures each of them as they face each other, and of course finally swirls around them as they sing, ‘Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.’ This film is as slick and shiny as Glinda’s lip gloss, but it may also be just what its many fans want.” —Caryn James, the BBC
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