Wicked: For Good Review

Wicked: For Good Review

Wicked: For Good was one of my most anticipated movies of 2025. I loved Wicked from last year and was very excited to see where this story goes. I was able to see it last night at Cinemark’s early screening of the film. What did I think about it? Let’s talk!

The Good

For me the best thing about this movie is that it’s another great epic production of Wicked. There’s so much detail in the production design and makes Oz feel so real and lived in despite it being one of the most famous fictional locations in pop culture. What’s fun about this movie is that because the story isn’t just limited to the school it means that we’re able to explore Oz more. It means that we’re able to see more locations present in this film. We’re in the Emerald City more and we explore more parts of it. There’s parts that take place in the forest that look magical and fantastical and like a place that we haven’t seen before. Jon M. Chu both in this film and the first film did such a good job of sucking you into this world that you want to explore more of. You want to see what’s around every corner and explore everything that’s present here. Wicked rightfully so won the Oscar for production design, this film deserves the production design Oscar once again and maybe even more. 

Something that I appreciated about the film is that it’s much more layered and complex. The nature of this film sees all of our lead characters at these crossroads with each other. Elphaba and Glinda are at odds with each other; both of them are put into incredibly difficult situations where it’s hard for them to get out of. Because there’s a division between Elphaba and Glinda it means that the conversations between the other characters have depth to them. What they do with Fiyero in this movie and his arc allows there to be complexity between everybody. The emotions that the characters are feeling are much more complex because there’s love triangles that get involved that pushes our characters even more apart in the film. Because there’s emotions and we’re seeing our characters being pulled apart it allows for there to be bigger emotions being evoked. There’s points where you know exactly what our characters are feeling because the first film did such great character work that just by seeing faces you know exactly what our characters are feeling. It added layers to this film in a way that I wasn’t expecting, especially considering the first film had ideas and layers about racism and prejudice. 

Of course one of the big things you have to talk about here are the performances. Everybody in here is just doing great work and knocking it out of the park. There’s been a lot of talk about Ariana Grande should’ve won the Oscar for part one. That’s because Glinda is given more to do than she deserves for this film. We don’t know where the awards season is going to go but there’s a strong argument to be had that Grande deserves the Oscar. She’s able to play the same quirky and charming Glinda that we saw in part one but because she’s put in a different position she’s playing a more complex version. She has to deliver some of the meater and more emotional scenes of the film. As you move into the third act she gets a lot of great moments that shows that she’s very talented. Cynthia Erivo is once again great here, I don’t think she’s given as much great material to do as in part one. I think Erivo’s better performance is in part one, Grande is better in part two. I will say, Erivo does get the best song in the film. Jonathan Bailey is of course another standout here. Once again, Fiyero is in a much different place. He’s still able to be that charming person you expect from part one, but he’s more complicated and is given dramatic weight that he has to carry. That’s one of the most impressive things about the performances is that they’re having to play multiple different characters in the film. They’re having to play the characters that the audience sees, the each other sees, and that the public sees. Which is very impressive and just shows that they cast the right people in these roles because with how complex they are, certain actors might not be able to handle this amount of weight that they have to carry from scene to scene. 

Finally, Jon M. Chu shows that he’s one of the best and most inventive filmmakers working right now. I talked about him earlier in that the production design is fantastic and sucks you into the world of Oz. What he’s able to do in the scenes has so much creativity and talent in them. He shoots these musical numbers in such a way where you feel like you’re in them with these characters. There’s one very impressive one with Glinda that I believe was an original song for the movie. It uses mirrors in such a way where you don’t know what the mirrors and what’s not and it’s all done in one shot. Even his ability to let you know what the characters are feeling is so good. I believe Denis Villeneuve said that the most important part of a movie is the faces. If a director has done their job you should be able to look at their faces and understand what that character is feeling. There’s moments here where the characters don’t need to say anything but the audience knows everything because of their faces. 

The Bad

The biggest issue I had with this movie was its connections to The Wizard of Oz. It’s hard to talk about this specifically without going into spoilers. But if you’ve seen the trailers you know that Dorothy and the other characters appear in the film. In the back half of the film, these characters are prominent and tie into the story in major ways. The way it does this feels like it’s stretching out the runtime much longer than it needs to be. At points it feels like they had 45 minutes left of plot to tell after “Defying Gravity” but they added in The Wizard of Oz connections to make it feature length. The way that it’s done in the movie means that the story is very clunky. They intentionally cut the scenes from the movie that are in The Wizard of Oz. The movie doesn’t show Dorothy’s face, you only see her from behind, that means that it’s having to cut the scenes from the movie that would show Dorothy’s face. This next part is the closest to SPOILERS that I’ll get about the movie. In the movie we see the tornado that causes Dorothy’s house to land in Oz. The next scene after that is Dorothy leaving Glinda to go on The Yellow Brick Road. We don’t see the conversation or the musical number between Dorothy and Glinda, we see the aftermath of it. They cut all of the scenes that are in The Wizard of Oz. It does this multiple times that it’s very jarring and distracting, it kind of pulled me out of the movie whenever it was pivoting away from being a sequel to Wicked and being a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. 

The other thing about this movie is that because the film is darker and our characters are at odds more, it means that some of the charm and the magic of the first film is lost. One of the things I found most charming about the first film was the charm of the cast and the characters. Ariana Grande as Glinda is playing this unlikable character but she’s charming in the role and you’re rooting for her, you want to see more of her. Likewise, Jonathan Bailey is playing the cocky high school jock type character and he’s so effortlessly charming in that role. Charming is one of the roles that I’d use to describe that film. With this film being more serious and our characters at odds I felt like some of the charm and the magic of the first film was lost. I get that it’s the point of the movie, it makes sense as to why the characters are acting the way that they are but that doesn’t change the fact that some of the fun whimsical nature of that first film is lost. There’s still fun and charming moments here and there, but they’re few and far between and make the film lack a certain emotional weight. 

Also one of the biggest disappointments when it comes to this movie is that the songs aren’t nearly as good or as memorable as that first film. I didn’t know Wicked’s story going into the first film. That was brand new territory for me, I didn’t know any of the songs, not even “Defying Gravity”. I found all of the songs to be very memorable and super catchy. Not to nerd out here but “Dancing Through Life” is my most listened to song of 2025. With this film, the best songs in this movie which I would say are “No Good Deed” and “As Long as Your Mine”, even those songs I don’t think match the high points of the first film. When this film is both a musical and following up one of the great musical movies of all time with fantastic songs that’s a bit of a problem and makes the movie feel underwhelming. I’m not too surprised by that because I have heard from people that the second half of the Wicked Broadway play isn’t nearly as good or as memorable as the first half. 

Finally, there’s two massive reveals at the end of this film that are treated as big shocking reveals but done so weirdly and so poorly. Both of them were telegraphed so far in advance that when you get to that moment it’s like “well duh, we all knew where this was going much earlier in the film.” They’re treated as reveals for the characters but the audience should be able to piece things together especially if you’ve seen The Wizard of Oz. One of the plot twists I figured out at the beginning of part one, if you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about. And then the other one is obvious because the film in an earlier scene shows you what happens to that character. It was very strange and I didn’t get it at all and thought it should’ve been handled differently. 

Final Thoughts: Overall, Wicked: For Good is a very frustrating film. There’s still a lot in here that I thoroughly enjoyed. When it comes to the character work and the production of the film, it’s still just as good and sometimes between the previous film. But when it leans into being a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, the movie doesn’t work as well and provides a very clunky experience. I have tickets to see it a second time on Thanksgiving day with my mom and grandparents. I’m very curious as to who my thoughts on this movie will change since I know where it’s going and what to expect. 

The Score: 8.0/10 (B-)