Wicked: For Good Review: Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande Shine in Powerful Musical
It’s time to try a movie musical that may change you for good. Last year, Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation of the first act of the famous stage musical Wicked took over the world. This year, he adapts the final act for the big screen with Wicked: For Good, once again starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda. This movie won’t win over anyone who didn’t like the first film, but for the longtime fans of the stage musical and the newcomers who loved last year’s Wicked, this is an emotionally satisfying movie that concludes the story in style.
This movie reintroduces Erivo’s Elphaba like a superhero, taking down bad guys in her fight for animal rights. The character introduction feels like a lost art in film lately, so it’s great to see Chu pull it off with care. He does the same with Grande’s Glinda, and right off the bat, both of them prove to be perfect casting choices once again. Erivo brings powerhouse vocals and a ferocity to Elphaba that gets to take shape particularly in this film, which sees her at a different stage in life than the first film. She’s more confident and assured, and the world around her requires her to be a more ruthless version of herself.
If the first Wicked movie was one of the early Harry Potter installments, Wicked: For Good feels like Deathly Hallows: Part Two. The first movie was more lighthearted and funny, with our main characters dealing with school drama, dances, and how to be popular. This movie leans heavily into themes about government propaganda and a world that wants an innocent woman dead. Glinda is quite literally working for the villains, the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), who are enslaving and trapping animals. Meanwhile, Nessarose (Marissa Bode) has taken her step towards the dark as a corrupt government official using her power as leverage in her relationship with Boq (Ethan Slater).
While Wicked: For Good retains bits of humor, particularly with Glinda, it’s a more somber movie. As the film progresses, horrible things happen to characters we love, and it can be a lot to process. It’s all handled eloquently by the cast. Jonathan Bailey is back as Fiyero. He’s no longer the fun-loving, flirtatious bad boy at school; he’s Captain of the Wizard’s Guard, tasked with finding and arresting Elphaba.
Slater gets a very interesting turn as Boq. He goes through a disturbing transformation that renders him unrecognizable from the Munchkin with a crush on Glinda. Yeoh and Goldblum are two excellent actors, but they are the shining example of the pitfall of casting non-singers in musicals. Despite serving two decent villainous performances, they cannot sing, particularly Yeoh. As much as the film’s autotune wants to save their vocals, there’s a noticeable decline in quality, especially when singing alongside Grande’s world-class voice.
A minor disappointment with this musical is the music. The score from John Powell and Stephen Schwartz works, but the songs in this one are not nearly as strong as the ones in the first movie. It’s not uncommon for Act One to have better songs than Act Two, but you really feel it with this movie. Erivo’s show-stopping performance of “No Good Deed” brought down the house at my screening, and “For Good” is a touching number, but beyond that, most of the songs lean towards forgettable.
It’s also worth knowing that the very existence of this dark, occasionally mean-spirited story is contradictory to the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie. That film was filled with joy, following a girl who discovers a beautiful land and makes friends she’ll never forget. The Wicked movies display Oz as a place filled with awful, mean people who discriminate against Elphaba, cage and abuse animals, and are led by an oppressive government that lies to its citizens. As a result, when the movie eventually incorporates the elements we’re familiar with — Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow — everything feels so bleak and unfamiliar to the most famous time we saw these characters on the big screen.
Everything about Dorothy feels out of place in this story. It’s strange because her story was the jumping-off point for this tale that offers an alternate perspective. When it’s time for Dorothy to appear in this movie, she’s offscreen for most of it and has no dialogue. She’s not really a character; more of a plot device that feels so inconsequential to the plot for most of it. The story sometimes feels held back by having to incorporate Dorothy and send her on an adventure with the three colorful characters. It’s understandable not to want to distract from Elphaba, but the handling of Dorothy’s storyline feels incomplete.
The Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow are introduced, but their offscreen adventure with Dorothy feels so unimportant compared to the narrative of what’s happening with Glinda and Elphaba. The reason why it doesn’t work is that these characters that start off interesting within this world are sent to do a lot of their character growth off-screen. The movie loses interest in them halfway through, and we never really get satisfying onscreen conclusions for what happened with most of them—not Dorothy, not the Tin Man, and not the Cowardly Lion. At some point, these characters just disappear from the film and aren’t seen again with nothing resolved.
While Wicked: For Good is relying on your preexisting knowledge of Dorothy’s story, the movie doesn’t fill you in very much, especially since the version of Dorothy we’re seeing here is not the same as the one we saw in The Wizard of Oz (1939). It’s strange to have fragments of a different, nonexistent movie littered throughout a narrative that feels so independent from it. It further detracts from it all because, due to the nature of this story, Elphaba never really gets the chance to serve comeuppance to her adversaries, nor does she come face-to-face with a devastating revelation about her family history.
But the beating heart of this movie is Glinda. Grande might be taking home the Best Supporting Actress award this year at the Oscars with this performance. For years, she’s had so much passion for this characte,r and you can tell how much care has gone into bringing her to life in these movies. Her singing was always going to be phenomenal, but Glinda goes through a lot of pain in this film. Grande needed to sell that, and she does, particularly during a shot where Chu simply lets the camera linger on her face as something devastating has just happened to her. She brings excellent comedic timing, but there’s a sadness that stays through this performance.
During her “The Girl in the Bubble” musical number, Chu proves his directing prowess again with brilliant use of reflections. Chu and his genuine love for this story make this movie work. You can tell he’s crafting an experience that fans of the stage show will be happy with, and isn’t as concerned with bringing in a new audience, which ties into some of the issues I and others might have. I also respect how Chu didn’t do a lot of catch-up within this movie. He treats audiences as if they’ve already seen the first movie and don’t need constant reminders of everything that happened before, so much so that he’s willing to pay off setups that happened in the first movie within this sequel. It’s refreshing after how Christopher McQuarrie frustratingly tried to treat Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning as a standalone movie.
Ultimately, Wicked: For Good works because of Erivo and Grande. They sell a love for each other that doesn’t feel like acting. These two polar opposite characters are a match made in heaven, and it’s so nice to buy into their bond. Even if some of the other characters become uninteresting halfway through the movie, Elphaba and Glinda remain powerful pieces of the puzzle. This movie can be breathtaking at times, delivering what you want from a movie musical and creating an experience that you’ll always remember.
SCORE: 7/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended the NYC premiere for our Wicked: For Good review.
Source: Comingsoon.net