Wicked: For Good is an impressive prodution that works better as a companion piece than a movie musical in its own right.
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After the success of the first film, there was never any question about whether or not For Good would do numbers at the box office. It's the sequel to one of the biggest movies of last year, the second movie was basically in the can and ready to release around the same time a year later. This is a can't miss scenario...at least on the money end. But, there were some lingering questions, especially for anyone familiar with musicals and Wicked, which we'll get into later, about whether or not the movie would be a) satisfying for fans and b) a good movie in its own right. In short, it's definitely a downgrade...for some expected and unexpected reasons.
The Setup
Picking up where the last movie left off, Elphaba is waging a one woman guerrilla campaign against the Wizard of Oz and his cronies, freeing animals and trying to break his propagandistic spell on the people of Oz. Meanwhile, Glinda has found herself to be a powerless puppet of the regime used as a morale booster. But can the two friends reunite and turn the tide in Oz, or will their friendship fracture and leave the land in its wake?
I expected this. Not everything about the movie, but I definitely expected a bit of a downgrade. The most obvious reason is what I'll dub the "Musical Second Act Issue." Which is actually the inverse of the "Part One" problem.
The Part One problem is something that beloved franchises run into when they're telling a story that's too big for one movie and they decide to split it into two films. With a few exceptions, Part One is almost always less appreciated, watched or beloved than Part Two. Because Part One, by it's very nature has to end on a cliffhanger that the audience desperately wants resolved. As much as folks might like individual moments in Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame is infinitely more satisfying.
Musicals tend to have an inverse problem which is the intermission. Almost all musicals are pretty long to see in person, so to give the performers, audience and sell some more concessions, they're split into two acts with an intermission in between. As such, the songs that end Act 1 are almost always bangers during an emotional and musical high point. Which means that the third act downer that most folks associate with movies, usually hits in the second act.
Musical second acts are notoriously more serious and feature far fewer "fun" songs that folks will be singing all the way home. Perhaps the most egregious example is Stephen Sondheim's classic Into the Woods that ends its first act with all of its fairy tales reaching their happy conclusion. And starts off its second act with every relationship seemingly falling apart as an angry giant begins taking her revenge on the entire kingdom.
And Wicked is exactly like this, with almost all of the story's darkest moments and themes going from subtext and text to blatant text and all but two of the musicals catchiest songs (in my opinion) having all been sung.
Those are weakness that were baked in as soon as you decided to make this two movies instead of one, but it could have worked. Instead they mostly keep things the same with a couple of songs added in. Does it work? Yes and no. Let's start with strengths.
Strength #1: Great Showing from the Entire Cast
Picking right up where they left off, the whole cast truly delivers by either giving more of what worked last time or truly expanding their performance to add depth and nuance. As an example, Ariana Grande's strongest moments in the last film were where she could play up Glinda's more comical aspects, and here it's almost all heavy stuff with a lot of pained smiling through it glances or desperately trying to be optimistic in spite of mounting evidence that everything is not ok.
Cynthia Erivo provides mountains of righteous fury and her powerful voice wherever she gets an opportunity to do so. Jonathan Bailey turns from non-stop charm to something more complicated and even Jeff Goldblum embraces a bit of pathos here and there. Exactly what you want from everyone, top to bottom.
Strength #2: Still Incredible Production Design and Orchestration
As much as some folks had issues with Jon Chu's direction in the first film, you can see why they brought him in this movie. We've got a lot more spectacle, more set pieces, and more locations that all need to look and feel distinctive. At the same time we also need to expand our vision of places like Munkinland so we get more steampunk and turn of the century aesthetic. Likewise, while the songs lack the same heft or catchiest of the first film, Schwartz and company's orchestration is suitably gigantic and only decides to pull back for a handful of chosen ballads.
Now we have to head to some more critical areas.
Mixed Bag: Timely Themes
As it's been said many times, some movies have relevance thrust upon them. And if your villain is a con man who vilifies and oppresses a minority population to the point they actually lose their ability to speak while also calling a woman of color who opposes you, a literal demon witch who's trying to destroy the kingdom, you just landed in a "far too relevant for our day and age" zone.
So the movie's cynical view about how easy it is to manipulate the population via propaganda and military control is dead-on. As is Glinda's realization that she's sacrificed what she truly values for the sake of her own enrichment and personal comfort.
That all works. Just like Elphaba carrying out guerrilla attacks on Oz forces uses animals as slave labor or trying her own renditions of propaganda.
I think the movie to change things up to be more hopeful.
The core of the message from the musical is that Oz's populace, and people in general, often need to be manipulated into making the right changes. Without spoiling anything, the idea isn't that Elphaba and Glinda need to flip-flop the existing narrative, they need to use it to reach their end goals.
Which is pretty cynical and also a bit of a bummer. Because it's not like a reverse con they're planning to pull on the populace. We're leaning into their prejudices to see if we can sort this whole place out.
Meanwhile the "outcast and insider working together to take down an oppressive regime" idea was sitting there the whole time and you could adapt the script to make it feel more like the friends fulfilling the vision laid out in "Defying Gravity." Working in tandem and there's no fight they can't win and all.
Demerits: New Songs and Tonal Issues
These two kinda go hand in hand because theoretically, I see how this could've worked. Everyone working on the film realized they didn't have a "Defying Gravity" level banger in their pocket for the second movie so let's write two more to both add some tracks to the soundtrack and maybe liven up this dour part of the story.
Unfortunately both of the songs that were written are downbeat ballads that lack the arrangement, catchiness or opportunities for vocal flourish that could add some energy to the proceedings.
The songs also don't offer much to do visually since they're both more or less character songs where one of our leads announces how they feel about something on a soundstage or set.
To put it in song terms. This movie desperately needed something like "Let It Go" or at least "The Wizard and I" and what it did instead was two more songs like "I'm Not That Girl."
Again. Perfect opportunity to kick up the movie's energy, but instead we're reinforcing the dour mood.
But as dark as the movie is, it's also trying not to be too adult to keep the PG rating. Which means we have some comical shifts from slapstick level gags or a love song that feels more Disney movie than two adults actually singing about their passion for one another.
So we're not fully embracing the dark, while also not doing much to lighten the mood besides letting Ariana Grande show off those comedy chops every now and then.
That's the tension that's omnipresent in the movie. They want to capture the first film's joy, while dealing with its darkest ideas, but also not directly dealing with its darkest implications in an impactful way.
We have a story that deals with death, torture, and body horror level transformation...that it doesn't show on screen...in a movie about the ugly truths hidden within a seemingly happy society.
Oddly enough, in an effort to make this movie more appealing to a larger audience, the filmmakers tried to pull off a Wizard of Oz like con.
Conclusion: A Companion Piece
While there's a lot of appealing elements, and the cast and crew clearly gave their all, For Good is hampered by the requirements and limitations set up by its production and source material and doesn't make enough changes to forge it's own path. In short, it's best as a companion piece to the first film, not as a enjoyable movie musical on its own.
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