“Wicked: For Good” Falls Short of the First Film’s Magic

Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in Wicked: For Good. Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

In 2024, Wicked—with its powerful songs, likable characters, emotional moments, and relevant themes around racism and intolerance—surprised a lot of people, including me. I truly did love the first film, and its music was so memorable that it had me listening to the soundtrack on repeat. It really did feel like an important pop cultural moment, and there was a ton of momentum going into the conclusion of the story. That’s why it pains me to say that I was very underwhelmed by Wicked: For Good.

Most of the traits that made Wicked so special are still present in its follow-up. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo continue to showcase their outstanding portrayals of Glinda and Elphaba. Their singing, while much more subdued in this half of the story, is still impressive in certain moments. And the world of Oz is still represented with beautiful and intricate set design as well as CGI. The problem is that these elements don’t do enough to elevate the story to more than what we already got from the first film. In fact, in many cases, they fall far short of the mark previously set.

Bowen Yang as Pfannee, Bronwyn James as Shenshen, and Ariana Grande as Glinda. Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

First, let’s talk about the music. The song “For Good” is the obvious standout here, and it was the highest level of emotion I felt throughout the entire movie. It’s a shame that it comes near the conclusion of the story, meaning you’ve already sat through most of the film before hearing it. The music up until this point really didn’t stand out to me at all. There were some memorable moments, but these were few and far between and didn’t stand up to even the less popular songs in the first half of the story. The best parts of the music are really the callbacks to songs from the first film that are reprised in this one, and even those probably work a lot better if you’re watching the full musical—the reality of splitting it into two movies is that we’ve been hearing these songs for an entire year and they don’t feel fresh or new anymore.

Which brings me to the next issue, and probably the biggest one, which is that the first half of this movie is very bloated and slow paced. It felt like there was a lot of added exposition that didn’t do much to evolve the story, potentially because the writers needed to fill the 2-hour and 15-minute runtime. This ultimately had me pretty bored, and by the time things started to pick up, it was just too late to gain back my interest. I was hoping For Good would really ramp up the scope and epicness of the story, but it fell pretty flat for me. If there needed to be extra scenes, they should’ve at least been entertaining.

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, Ariana Grande as Glinda, and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard. Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

My final complaint is that I really had trouble buying into multiple characters’ motivations. Part of this was that it was unclear to me how much time had really passed since the first film—it took me a while to realize that a large amount of time had gone by, causing big changes in characters like Glinda and Nessa. Because these characters were built up to be so likable in the first film, I had trouble believing that they would support the Wizard and his motives so willingly. On the flipside, the moment of wickedness from Elphaba toward the end of the film felt somewhat out of character, and the reason did not feel like it justified her actions.

Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

In the end, I think what hurt Wicked: For Good the most was the decision to split the story into two separate movies in the first place. The first part of the story feels so much stronger than the second, and by separating them you are forcing people to judge them independently instead of two parts of one whole story. This strategy has become very popular with movie studios, and I think this is another example of how it can fail. This might’ve been the choice that made the most money, but it was not the choice that made the best piece of art. I’m sad that the conclusion to such an impactful and iconic story fell so short, but at least we still have the 2024 film.