‘Wicked: For Good’ review: Cynthia Erivo sparkles, but musical sequel fails to hit the high notes

Dir: Jon M. Chu. US. 2025. 137mins

Following sizzling on the heels of final 12 months’s smash first chapter, Depraved: For Good repeats that movie’s notable strengths and obvious flaws. Primarily based on the favored Broadway musical, which reimagined The Wizard Of Oz from the attitude of the story’s good and evil witches, this sequel resolves the feud between mates Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) whereas wielding boisterous songs, opulent manufacturing design and outsized feelings. However finally director Jon M. Chu’s more-is-more method has a numbing impact, the countless spectacle leaving little room for nuance, depth or real feeling.

The countless spectacle leaves little room for nuance, depth or real feeling

To be truthful, these similar hindrances affected the 2024 image, and that had no discernible unfavourable impression on its field workplace. Depraved introduced in $757 million worldwide, and Common has its sights set on comparable grosses for the sequel, which opens throughout a lot of the globe on November 21, virtually precisely a 12 months after half one. The primary movie received two Oscars and two Baftas, and the betting is that For Good will get pleasure from comparable awards consideration, with stars Erivo and Grande particularly producing vital buzz.

As For Good begins, Elphaba has been ostracised, labelled as an enemy of Ouncesand branded The Depraved Witch Of The West. Her former classmate and buddy Glinda, dubbed Glinda The Good, hopes to work by again channels to revive Elphaba’s title, however Elphaba has been radicalised by the pernicious lies peddled by the so-called Fantastic Wizard Of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), and is set to reveal him as a rip-off artist and finish his reign.

The Depraved musical, tailored from Gregory Maguire’s novel, grew to become a cultural sensation within the early 2000s, difficult The Wizard Of Oz’s black-and-white notions of decency and wickedness. Final 12 months’s movie coated Act One of many musical, and For Good focuses on Act Two, together with the present’s conclusion, which connects this story to the well-known story of a younger girl named Dorothy who finds herself on this magical land.

Stephen Schwartz’s sturdy songs present a constant spark to a sequel that usually will get slowed down within the energy struggles occurring in Oz. The uptempo ‘Fantastic,’ wherein The Wizard cynically explains to Elphaba in regards to the public’s gullibility, and the Elphaba-Glinda ballad ‘For Good’ have catchy melodies and a few intelligent traces. However these Depraved highlights really feel like placeholders in a sequel that encompasses too many unmemorable characters, failing to find the heartbreak between Elphaba and Glinda as they realise their destinies are sending them down totally different paths.

As within the first movie, Erivo is For Good’s most compelling factor. Enjoying the green-skinned witch who has felt like an outcast since childhood, the Grammy- and Tony-winning actress conveys each Elphaba’s anger and vulnerability, displaying the viewers how these adolescent wounds have by no means healed. She’s a putting presence but in addition a sympathetic one, with The Depraved Witch’s trademark black hat serving as a metaphorical crown of thorns for a personality who finally embraces the position of villain as a result of the world has refused to see her some other manner. Erivo doesn’t have a music as highly effective as the primary movie’s ‘Defying Gravity’ right here, however her skill to mix vocal method and uncooked emotion stays spectacular.

Sadly, Grande continues to be dwarfed by her co-star. The famend pop star brings a sly shallowness to Glinda, who has been stunning and common her complete life and, subsequently, hasn’t skilled many obstacles. However Grande fights an uphill battle to make her character’s torn loyalties resonate. On the one hand, Glinda cherishes her buddy however, on the opposite, she’s so used to being beloved that concept of risking her social standing to insurgent towards Ouncess corruption makes her uncomfortable. Quite than externalising that internal battle, Grande’s Good Witch comes throughout as indecisive and weak, tremendously diminishing the stakes underlying the 2 ladies’s conflict.

Chu as soon as once more does wizardly work, alongside manufacturing designer Nathan Crowley, to drape For Good in vivid colors and lavish seems. And costume designer Paul Tazewell attire the characters in putting garments that pay homage to the Judy Garland movie. However all that relentless pizzazz turns into distracting when so many scenes are dramatically underpowered. Michelle Yeoh’s calculating Madame Morrible is a boring henchwoman to Goldblum’s mannered Wizard.

Even the charming Jonathan Bailey, whose gallant Fiyero is the thing of each witches’ affections, appears tamped down by the movie’s rampant sumptuousness. When he and Erivo duet on the touching love music ‘As Lengthy As You’re Mine,’ For Good briefly offers the human drama area to breathe. Too usually, although, this lacklustre sequel tries so exhausting to knock our ruby slippers off that it by no means conjures up the buoyant magic that has made The Wizard Of Oz endure.