'Wicked: For Good' Review: A Chaotic, Tornado-Filled Finale Despite Powerful Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande Performances
After feeling moved by Wicked: Part One’s finale, all of my musical theater friends warned me not to get my hopes up for the concluding chapter. Wicked: For Good, which was shot in tandem to the first, faces an uphill battle to outdo all the weaknesses of the source material's post-intermission story. To my chagrin, Wicked: For Good does little to rectify any of its stage's deficiencies in its film adaptation, exposing not only the weakest of the musical's story but also signifying my umbrage I have towards studio-made contemporary musical adaptations.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Universal Pictures
MPA Rating: PG (for action/violence, some suggestive material and thematic material.)
Runtime: 2 Hours and 17 Minutes
Language: English
Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Marc Platt Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: Jon M. Chu
Writers: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande-Butera, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Colman Domingo
Release Date: November 21, 2025
Set some time after Part One, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), now known as the Wicked Witch of the West, is on a mission to expose the Wizard of Oz's (Jeff Goldblum) fraudulence and liberate the animals he oppressed. Unfortunately, everyone she tries to turn to fails to support her. All the animals are scared and going into hiding underground. Her sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode), who assumes the role as Munchkinland's governor following their father's passing, wants nothing to do with her. Particularly, after she failed to support her grief, unlike her boyfriend Boq (Ethan Slater) — whose attempt to break it off leads to rustic ramifications
Meanwhile, Glinda (Ariana Grande), who has been rebranded as The Good Witch, discovers how the Wizard and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) are manipulating her image to better their totalitarian rule. They surprise Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who has become head guard of Oz, with an engagement—though he has Elphaba on his mind. They also give Glinda a flying bubble machine to hide the fact that she doesn't have any magic.
Given their new positions within the regime, Elphaba and Glinda's journey towards transformation might be sparked by the arrival of a visitor from Kansas.
Wicked: Part One's "good" aspects are preserved in For Good.
L to R: Cynthia Erivo (as Elphaba) and Ariana Grande (as Glinda) with Director Jon M. Chu on the set of WICKED FOR GOOD."
Erivo and Grande have affirmed their excellence as their respective characters before. So why reiterate? The duo continue to soar with their chemistry as strong as the wind gusts of a tornado.
For Good is at its best when examining Glinda's struggle between her desire to restore her friendship with her best friend and her people-pleasing tendencies. There's more time dedicated to developing her, creating a strong duality between her and Elphaba that has its emotional payoff when the titular number occurs.
Then, on Elphaba's end, it effectively depicts the emotional heel turn to Wicked. Her repeated attempts to convince one non-red-pilled (or, I suppose, green-pilled) person to support her cause fail, and the Wizard and Morrible's power has an impact on everyone she loves. By the time "No Good Deed," hits, you viscerally feel Elphaba's resort to antagonism, elevated by Ervio's passionate vocals and mannerisms.
Everyone in the ensemble is still pretty much the same as they were in the first, with Bailey and Bode being the standouts and Yeoh the weakest component.
Yeah, it still looks like that.
L to R: Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba, Ariana Grande is Glinda, and Jeff Goldblum is The Wizard of Oz in WICKED FOR GOOD, directed by Jon M. Chu.
Instead of being shot-back-to-back, Wicked: For Good could’ve done with a year-long production gap. At least reassess and develop the material that most needed to be worked on and improve on the predecessor's shortcomings, particularly in the writing and visual departments. But you can sense the Wicked experiment's momentum ebbing away in real time because Marc Platt's adaptation productions insist on only translation and lack appropriate cinematic elements. Even down to its look.
DP Alice Brooks' ugly, desaturated, overcast cinematography is doubled down like J.J. Abrams' lens flares when he went from Star Trek '09 to 2013's Into Darkness. Because For Good takes place outside more, the source of the dull colored lighting becomes a character in real time, since it gave me a headache and prevented some of the major narrative story points from having less of an impact. The film is like a vigilante with how it visually shines when set at night (and also indoors). Only then are the characters clear to look at, and some colorful visuals pop without being blinding.
For example, Boq's rustic transformation elicits no real response because the bland shot composition dilutes a real body horror feat. This makes it impossible for me to even commend the prosthetics team because the reveal features the sun-coated light reflecting from a mirror. So, I can't really see him until later on when he appears at a nighttime scene.
Now apply the issues I had with Boq's reveal to every musical number. All of these songs are subpar compared to the first act, so Jon M. Chu's direction is aesthetically conventional and overall forgettable. Again, none of the sequences hit the magnitude and artistry poured into In The Heights. Whatever memorability here stems from its performer's vocals and his wedding planner eye from Crazy Rich Asians seeping through in Glinda's wedding scene.
Writers reapplies instead of rework, rendering For Good for worse.
Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba in WICKED FOR GOOD, directed by Jon M. Chu.
The adaptation from writers Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox appears to be as automatic as M. Chu's commercial direction. In contrast to their successful translation of the first act into a clear three-act structure, the entire structure is disjointed in this scenario.
The second act requires more effort in adaptation, given that like the source, it pulls a Lion King ½ with The Wizard of Oz. But Dorothy, who is completely a non-character, if not a story device, adds contrivance to For Good.
Similarly to the source, the film is overly reliant on the viewer's familiarity with The Wizard of Oz. However, the convoluted intersection that involved the fates of the characters in Wicked becoming a part of Wizard of Oz lends itself to confusing story and character turns. God forbid you question Holzman to rework the narrative flaws of her playbook because she and Fox are committed to maintaining the musical's integrity, despite it being rendered unintelligible in the film medium.
Never for a moment does For Good justify its overlong 137-minute runtime and loose pacing, mining new material in the wrong areas: The music department. The new songs are alright, with "No Place Like Home" standing out and "Girl in the Bubble" actually having superior visual artistry to the rest of the numbers. Yet, they're all so blatantly made for Oscar potential above anything else. The overall incoherence of the production is well-known to the musical theater demographic, but it also alienates the general audience. This demonstrates the true commercial objectives behind the whole Wicked experience, focused on getting the bag first, making a good movie second.
Wicked: For Good encapsulates the worst of modern movie musical adaptations.
L to R: Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba and Jonathan Bailey is Fiyero in WICKED FOR GOOD, directed by Jon M. Chu.
Everything about Wicked is based on loyalty and nostalgia, which is everything I dislike about modern movie musicals. The Marc Platt-produced ones in particular, like the drab Into the Woods and the abysmal Dear Evan Hansen. Even all his Disney live-action movies where the buck of quality stops at production design and one or two performers, always finds a way to update all in the wrong areas ebbing out everyone in the process.
After seeing Bill Condon's bold and beautiful Kiss of the Spider-Woman, which he directed and wrote, had me yearn for what would've been had he had the keys to Elphaba's broom (maybe would’ve made Gelphie canon). Not just because it's visually striking and eye-catching, but also because he wanted to rework the antiquated text in need of a functional update.
Overall, whatever magic that flying broom had to propel itself into the air in Part One hits only severe turbulence throughout For Good before crashing onto a yellow-brick tarmac. But hey, at least Jon M. Chu got to say "first" in regard to making a Wicked adaptation, leaving room for someone to, hopefully in the future, make an adaptation that's truly "wonderful."
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