Wicked: For Good (2025)

Given that I’m not a huge fan of musicals, I was looking forward to the second part of Wicked. I enjoyed the first part a lot more than I was expecting and this film has to achieve a lot and do it in slightly less time than the first. The film doesn't attempt to do a ‘previously on….’ which is probably the wise thing to do even though the film came out 12 months ago, most people will have taken the time to watch it again because it's a lot of fun. The film sees Elphaba effectively turn into public enemy number one and starts off by causing the building of the yellow brick road to be disrupted. Glinda meanwhile seems to be firmly on the side of the wizard and happy to put up a facade of things being perfect and Elphaba being the baddie. 

The main issue with the film is that it kind of buckles under the weight of The Wizard of Oz. It tries to weave its own story in with The Wizard of Oz and does it well enough but then it feels quite restricted. They go to the trouble of bringing in Dorothy but we never see her face and when she kills Elphaba it is just in silhouette. We see how the Tinman becomes the Tinman and with the glut of horror films based on popular characters such as Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Mickey it will only be a matter of time before someone do a horror film with Tinman. Fiyero becomes the scarecrow although he doesn't feature as much once he turns into the scarecrow even though he runs off with Elphaba at the end. I did think the makeup was quite well done with the scarecrow but we just didn’t get to see enough of it. The Cowardly Lion appears briefly but it took me a moment to realise that he was the cub that Elphaba released in the first one. 

There are some things that I wasn't expected and to some they might work but one definitely doesn't work. The one that doesn't work is the idea that The Wizard is actually the father of Elphaba. That felt like it was wandering into melodrama territory and just felt unnecessary. Also the fact that it just seemed to serve as an excuse for Glinda to banish the Wizard. The other unexpected thing was the revelation that Elphaba didn’t die at the hands of Dorothy. It’s ok because it doesn't really undo the good vibe ending to The Wizard of Oz.

I don't think that this film is as good as the first one. I think that the weight of The Wizard of Oz proves to be too much and as a result doesn't feel as original as maybe the first part did. I also don't think that the songs are as good as in the first. The best that this film manages is Wonderful although I don’t think it’s as good as Defying Gravity. Overall the two two films work a lot better than I thought they would as it doesn't feel like there was too much padding and although I can’t compare these films to the stage show, I thought they were structured well.