Wicked for Good: A satisfying finale

Wicked for Good (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and fantasy violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.23.25

This one is better than last year’s first half … and not merely because it’s 30 minutes shorter.

 

As in the stage play, this second act cleverly interlaces its action with key events from the 1939 film: offering a Rashomon-style version of what we didn’t see back then, taking place behind the scenes after Dorothy, Toto and her house were dumped by the tornado.

 

Enraged by the "convenient" arrival of a massive tornado that has dumped a Kansas
house into the middle of Munchkinland, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) vows to discover who's
actually responsible for this calamity.

That said, the primary attractions once again are the powerhouse performances from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as (respectively) Elphaba and Glinda. They aren’t merely phenomenal singers; they’re also strong actors and commanding screen presences. As gorgeously mounted as this film is, it would be very little without them.

Events pick up where they left off, as the newly empowered Elphaba banishes herself from Emerald City. The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his malevolent abettor, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), immediately mount a disinformation campaign that paints Elphaba as a vicious figure of evil who must be caught and killed.

 

Superficially, she seems to deserve this label; the story begins as she disrupts completion of the glistening yellow brick roads that will lead to Oz. In truth, she does so in order to free the enslaved animals being abused in the process … but that distinction is lost on the Ozian workers.

 

Back in Emerald City, Madame Morrible’s scheme expands to “sell” Glinda as a begowned savior, now christened Glinda the Good. To offset her complete lack of magical powers, she’s given an ingenious “transport bubble” — along with a visually striking but wholly fake wand — that will convey an illusion of her powers.

 

The delicacy of Grande’s acting chops make this sequence a hoot, as Glinda repeatedly tests this device, like a little girl with a new toy.

 

To further enhance this elevation to public exaltation, Madame Morrible announces Glinda’s engagement to Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), captain of the Ozian guard, which comes as a surprise to both of them: deliriously happy for her, clearly uncertain for him.

 

Meanwhile, back in Munchkinland, assuming the governor’s chair has transformed Nessarose (Marissa Bode). Her simmering disappointment and petulance, galvanized by this intoxicating access to power and control, have blossomed into full-blown evil. This is tearfully acknowledged in song, when she admits to having become the Wicked Witch of the East (and we all know what eventually happens to her). 

 

Nessarose takes this out on the kind and devoted Boq (Ethan Slater), who is horrified by what she has become. 

 

As are we. How could these five previously closely knit friends — Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Nessarose and Boq — have fractured so catastrophically?

Wicked, Part One: Too much of a good thing

Wicked: Part One (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, and rather generously, for scary action and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

At the risk of being the Grinch at the party — and earning the wrath of the 2003 Broadway musical’s devoted Wickedites (Ozians?) — this film is much too long.

 

Shiz University students Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo, left) and Galinda (Ariana Grande)
loathe each other on first sight ... so, naturally, they're forced to room together.

I say this despite its best moments, when this film (literally) soars with exhilarating magic, most notably during choreographer Christopher Scott’s exhilarating production numbers, none better than “Dancing Through Life,” set in a multi-level school library with huge, rotating stacks of shelves. Director John M. Chu is (ahem) a wiz at ensemble pieces and splashy, opulent crowd sequences, as notably demonstrated in 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians and 2021’s In the Heights.

But this ponderous, 160-minute fantasy’s quieter, expository moments frequently sag beneath the weight of too many slow takes, a grim and insufficiently established subtext, and pauses so pregnant they could deliver.

 

Which do not, for a moment, overshadow the deeply moving, incredibly powerful and all-around superb performances by stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, both spectacular in song, dance, comedy and expressive moves and dramatic chops, as (initially) rival spell-casting students Elphaba and Galinda, at the fantastical land of Oz’s Shiz University.

 

I’d love to say that the über-talented Erivo and Grande compensate for this bloated film’s shortcomings, and — in fairness — they come very close. But no; nothing can fully camouflage the sagging weight of dramatic scenes than linger far beyond their sell-by date.

 

But that’s getting ahead of things. 

 

Chu’s film is based on the Winnie Holzman/Stephen Schwartz play (book/music and lyrics), which in turn is adapted from Gregory Maguire’s cheeky revisionist 1995 novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Holzman collaborated on this film’s screenplay, alongside Dana Fox, and viewed it — as she has been quoted — as being an opportunity to showcase all the scenes that were cut from the stage production.

 

(Note to all concerned: Sometimes stuff is trimmed for good reason.)

 

This film opens with a prologue that hearkens back to the end of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, as Dorothy and her companions depart along the yellow brick road, having vanquished the Wicked Witch of the West. When Glinda arrives in Munchkinland to confirm the news, one resident asks about her prior relationship with the deceased: “Is it true you once were friends?”

 

That takes her aback, and prompts the memories that become the story proper.

 

(The two spellings of Galinda’s name is a plot point.)

 

Years back, Munchinland Governor Thropp (Andy Nyman) is horrified when their first baby girl, Elphaba, proves to be ... green. (There’s a reason for this, also a key plot point.) Second daughter Nessarose, born a few years later, looksacceptable but will require a wheelchair her entire life.