Last year’s Wicked was a fruitful exercise in theatrical adaptation; Jon M. Chu’s grand vision of the Broadway smash hit impressed critics, fans, and general audiences alike, and grossed a tidy sum of $758 million at the box office, too. So the concluding chapter, Wicked: For Good, arrives with a lot to prove, but can Chu muster up the magic to defy gravity once more?
Following up a widely adored first parter is no easy feat, but the stage show’s second act is often regarded by many as the weaker half of the production as well, which makes Chu’s task all the more challenging to make this return worthwhile. Certainly, For Good lacks the musical flair of its predecessor; the 2 new, original songs aren’t particularly memorable and most of the tunes don’t have the earworm quality of the track list of Wicked: Part One, but No Good Deed and For Good are the highlight sequences here – even if they don’t quite come close to the sheer spectacle of last year’s Defying Gravity. And Wonderful is great fun as it lets Jeff Goldblum just do this thing.
Picking up where the first left off, The Wizard (Goldblum) is after Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), who has taken refuge in a forest and is determined to bring his propaganda to an end. She is hunted by Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), now leading the Wizard’s Guard, who, despite still having complicated feelings towards Elphaba, is engaged to Glinda (Ariana Grande) – now a figurehead in Oz but hoping to rekindle the friendship she lost a few years prior. The performances are more honed in this time around; Bailey, in particular, has dialled down his pantomimic turn from the last film; Grande is as charming as before; Michelle Yeoh and Goldblum round off Chu’s more refined vision; meanwhile, Erivo brings complexity and conviction to her troubled Wicked Witch of the West as the standout.
Related: One final trailer flies in for ‘Wicked: For Good’
Wicked: For Good’s issues, however, lie largely in how much weaker the second half of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical is. The issues that plague the stage show are also prevalent on screen: a lack of emotional depth, weaker songs, and a narrative incoherence that doesn’t know what to do with itself or how to dovetail into the events of The Wizard of Oz – something that felt as rushed and shoehorned in the Broadway musical as it does here. The appearances of the Oz characters feel set up like MCU cameos, and there isn’t enough time to give them each their due. At the same time, very little happens in For Good’s own narrative – the story doesn’t progress much beyond the initial setup, which means most of the 137-minute runtime feels like it’s devoid of any thematic or emotional edge.
Still, Chu cultivated such a tangible, awe-inspired world with Wicked that it’s hard not to be swept up in the visual grandeur and spectacle of it all over again. The core characters themselves are more fleshed out with more invested performances too – Grande and Erivo both getting apt opportunities to flex their vocal talents; their veritable chemistry with each other and with Bailey is always a joy to watch, their love-triangle is the most interesting of the arcs. The craftsmanship in For Good, as a whole, is tighter and more cohesive and Chu’s hand on this world is deft and comfortable. It’s just let down by a story that is thematically, narratively, emotionally, musically, and objectively far more lacklustre than what came before – stage show, film, or otherwise. Chu hasn’t quite cracked the formula, raising the question of why this needed to be split into two parts in the first place. For Good won’t convince the naysayers, but for the fans, it’s more time spent in the world of Oz… and that’s not such a bad thing.
Wicked: For Good opens in cinemas on November 21st, 2025.
‘Wicked: For Good’
Summary
One might raise the question of why this needed to be split into two parts in the first place – ‘For Good’ lacks the musical flair of its predecessor but we do get to return to the world of Oz… and that’s not such a bad thing.
