Review of Wicked: For Good, directed by Jon M. Chu

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently started an 8-5 job and have been trying to reclaim my sanity and hobbies by finding fun things to do on the weekends and after work, and one of my saving graces truly has been my AMC A List subscription. I’ve always had one on and off throughout graduate school, and I recently reclaimed my subscription after a brief stint of thinking I was going to move to India (long story).

Wicked is one of those movies we knew we were going to see when it came out. My sister tends to join me when it comes to movie watching, as she also has an AMC A List subscription, and we actually saw the first half of the musical when it came out in theaters a year prior with our mother and other sister. We decided on the same this year!

For some context: I was always a Wicked kid. I listened to the musical first when I was in middle school, and even wrote a weird fanfiction based on it for a class assignment. I was an odd seventh grader. Anyways, I was obsessed with the musical and it kind of kickstarted my love of theater that still exists today.

And I will admit that when we got to a certain number in this movie, I shed a tear or two. We’ve come a long way since this musical graced the Broadway stage, and it’s incredible to see it reach a wider audience through the medium of film, regardless of whether one likes the film or not.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

As Glinda finds more power in Oz, Elphaba continues her struggle to try and liberate the animals.

This movie takes place not longer after the first movie left off. Glinda, left behind by Elphaba, becomes an influential figure in Oz under the guidance of Madame Morrible and the Wizard, but it means that she completely kind of buys into their gimmick. Madame Morrible on the other hand is spreading propaganda far and wide about Elphaba, convincing people that she’s out to kill them.

Madame Morrible announces that Fiyero, now the captain of the guard, is going to marry Glinda, which is news for him, as he wants to continue looking for Elphaba. He leaves Glinda alone after agreeing to marry her, which sets us up for something major later in the film.

Elphaba is continuing her crusade of trying to free the animals from her hideout, appearing throughout Oz to stop their enslavement and other events from happening as they work on the Yellow Brick Road. When Elphaba finds a group of animals, including her nanny, leaving for the realms beyond Oz, she tries to tell them not to go and to fight for their rights.

The Cowardly Lion then tells them she created the Wizard’s spies, and they continue going down the road—they were almost convinced by her though. Back in Munchkinland, Nessarose has now become the governor of the realm. She has Boq working for her, but he wants to leave and find Glinda, despite Nessa being madly in love with him still.

Elphaba comes to visit her sister and enchants her shoes, giving her the ability to fly, but then Boq comes in and requests to leave because he’s learned about Glinda and Fiyero’s wedding. Nessa goes to the Grimmerie and casts a love spell, but shrinks his heart instead, forcing Elphaba to save him by turning him into the Tin Man.

She leaves to go to the wedding, but Nessa tells an enraged Boq that Elphaba did this to him. Elphaba arrives in time to talk to Glinda, then the Wizard, almost falling for his tricks. She agrees to work with him after he sets the monkeys free, but then one of them shows her where the rest of the animals, including Dr. Dillamond, are being held captive.

Elphaba frees them, causing a stampede at the wedding. Fiyero comes with his guard as she corners the Wizard, but then he switches sides to help Elphaba. As Glinda comes in she’s devastated to see his trickery and what she sees as a betrayal from Elphaba, and she watches them leave. She tells the Wizard and Madame Morrible that the way to get to Elphaba is through her sister, causing Madame Morrible to cast a spell where it brings Dorothy’s home to Oz and crushes Nessa beneath it.

Fiyero and Elphaba have a romantic night, but in the morning, she goes to the site of where her sister died calling for Boq. Glinda is there and they get into a fight, but the guard shows and grabs Elphaba as Glinda has her pinned. Fiyero shows up and sacrifices himself for Elphaba to get away, and she desperately casts a spell so he can survive. She wants her sister’s shoes back from Dorothy, who has been sent to end her by the Wizard and Madame Morrible.

Before Dorothy arrives though Glinda sees Dorothy, the Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow with a vengeful crowd that wants to end Elphaba. She sneaks out and heads to the castle on her own, having a final tearful goodbye with Elphaba, who gives her the Grimmerie before putting her in a side room. Glinda watches as she sees Dorothy melt Elphaba, then she tearfully returns to Oz, casts out the Wizard, and imprisons Madame Morrible.

Glinda then tells her new subjects, including the animals, to come to her with any problems. The film ends with Elphaba and Fiyero, who is the Scarecrow, heading to the realm beyond Oz to continue their lives elsewhere.

Overall Thoughts

It’s kind of well known that the second act of the musical isn’t the stronger one of the two, and I think that weakness reflects in this movie. The people who are also going to come into this movie expecting a similar vibe to the first movie are also going to be sorely disappointed, hence some of the reactions out there.

For me, as I was familiar with the material, I think this was a fine adaptation of the second act. We get some moments that really strike on film, such as Boq’s anger after being transformed into the Tin Man, but one of the broader weaknesses of the movie is the lack of characterization.

Like we see how Nessarose isn’t exactly the best person and obsessed with Boq, but we don’t get into the why that happened. Boq himself is a flat character who exists to love Glinda while Nessa loves him, so he doesn’t have any personality to begin with. We also rush through the engagement and then the eventual romance between Fiyero and Elphaba.

It’s a fine movie, but it could be better. I say go watch it if you haven’t, especially considering the political themes going on. It strikes me in a different way seeing the animal refugees with the current American political scene, as this is something we want to do to people in our own country.

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