@Courtesy of Universal Pictures

After the stunning and entirely deserved success of Wicked in 2024 (474 million dollars earned ad the US boxoffice, 755 worldwide, 10 nominations at the Academy Awards included Best Movie, Best Actress and Best Actress in a Supporting Role) this year’s sequel Wicked: For Good was by any means one of the most anticipated movies of the year. At the same time, the comparison with the first one would have been pretty inevitable, everyone knowing the difficulty of standing to such elevated cinematic standards. No problem, since this second chapter is something almost radically different from the previous one. 

First and most important: this time the narrative arc, the emotional and psychological journey we feel we want to follow is Glinda’s. Once the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West was so powerfully established, now the audience is set this time to experience Glinda’s growth and emancipation from Madame Morrible and the Wizard of Oz. After delivering one of the funniest performances of last year, Ariana Grande shows her remarkable skills as a dramatic actor, filling her role with nothing but intensity. Cynthia Erivo is still absolutely effective, no doubt about that, especially when it is about showing her incredible singing skills. That said, Elphaba is a way less interesting character in Wicked: For Good, and that makes Erivo’s performance not as powerful as in the first movie. 

Being clearly aware that the best songs were already performed in the first Wicked, the director Jon M. Chu and the screenwriters opted for another solution, which in the end elevated the movie’s quality. In this case, the musical moments are more like the frame for the story and the characters. The best parts of Wicked: For Good are not the songs or the choreographies but the sequences in which the characters develop their relationships and show their feelings. Even more important, the tone is significantly darker, because it addresses a few contemporary issues like how minorities are treated nowadays and how an authoritarian regime takes advantage of media propaganda and lack of response from opposition.

@Courtesy of Universal Pictures

If such themes were anticipated in the original feature film, it’s in Wicked: for good they become the principal source of the plot, especially in the first part of the movie. The second chapter lasts almost half an hour less than the previous, and this is a mistake: there are a couple of moments in the movie in which Glinda and Elphaba change too fast, as a viewer you feel you would know a little more about their doubts or internal struggle. Not to mention the supporting characters, many of them losing their charming side and their depth, first of all Prince Fiyero played by Jonathan Bailey.

Even if Wicked: For Good is not at the same level of the first movie, it is still absolutely worth watching and appreciating because it offers something different, maybe even more deep and dramatic. Jon M. Chu has shown his intelligence in creating a sequel that goes in another direction, that tries to develop a good deal of awareness about what’s going on in our world. That is a bold choice, and it must be endorsed.

After a good start, Wicked: For Good becomes more predictable when it’s about bringing the story and the characters to their destiny. This is when the comparison with Wicked becomes hard: the incredible last twenty minutes of the first chapter, with “Defying Gravity” wonderfully scanning the action and the birth of The Wicked Witch of the West. Here instead the movie arrives at the final showdown and you almost don’t realize it, because the scale of the events is so small and sudden. Another interesting choice for sure, but not that powerful. So when Wicked: For Good ends the viewer is left with a feeling of wanting more. 

It wasn’t easy to match a great movie like Wicked. It wasn’t easy at all. Jon M. Chu, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande and all the other artists that worked at this amazing duo know it, so they tried using Wicked: For Good for delivering something different and unexpected, at least in the shape it was realized. Not everything works, that’s evident, but in the end this sequel contains a lot of qualities that overcome the flaws and make it a pretty good movie. All included. 

@Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Rate: B-

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Here’s the trailer for Wicked: For Good: