Given that Wicked: For Good is a direct, planned continuation of last year's hit Broadway musical adaptation Wicked (2024), it carries with it all the same strengths and weaknesses. The cinematic stage on which director Jon M. Chu works his revisionist backstory of The Wizard of Oz is a grandiose merging of massive sets and digital wizardry, and once again the film's scope and scale threaten to, but never quite, consume the drama (the glossy-rich cinematography is by Alice Brooks, who previously worked with Chu on In the Heights and many of his early music videos). The second film doesn't necessarily feel bigger (visually or emotionally) than the first, but it does benefit from being able to build off its set-up. With the characters and their dynamics already well established, Wicked: For Good takes off right away, pushing the narrative in the clear direction indicated by the end of the first film.

At this point, Cynthia Erivo's green-skinned Elphaba has already been branded the Wicked Witch of the West, largely due to her refusal to go along with the fraudulent ploys of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), who plays the magnanimous king while secretly conspiring to all manner of mean-spirited political control and persecution (woe to the talking animals of Oz). Caught in the middle is Glinda (Ariana Grande), Elphaba's best friend who is being manipulated by the Wizard and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) to be a public counterweight to the Wicked Witch. Now branded the Good Witch and outfitted with a mechanically produced floating bubble that gives her the illusion of magical powers, she is a bright-eyed pawn whose growing awareness of her own manipulation provides the film with its most cogent political drama. If the first film was about Elphaba's disillusionment, Wicked: For Good focuses on Glinda's. Her awakening is awfully slow, though, as the blonde former mean girl has to shake off years of indoctrination and self-absorption to realize what is happening around her, which initially puts her at odds with Elphaba even as they still clearly care about each other. That push-and-pull of Elphaba and Glinda's love-hate relationship is the heart and soul of both films, and it reaches its apotheosis here with the moving musical number "For Good" in which they ruminate on how they are each better for having known the other.

Unlike the first film, Wicked: For Good adds two new songs and expands on ones in the original Broadway musical, which may account for why it feels longer even though it is a good 20 minute shorter than Wicked. Cynthia Erivo is again the shining star, as her strong screen presence and vocal power carry her role with immense conviction; pop star Ariana Grande does a better job keeping up this time, perhaps because her character has more nuance and depth now, as she is the one experiencing real growth. She also has some of the film's best comical moments, particularly her giggly little-girl glee at discovering the foot pedal that creates the bubble in which she "magically" floats. Some of the major characters from the first film are largely sidelined (sorry, Bowen Yang), while others follow new, sometimes unexpected paths. Jonathan Bailey's Fiyero, who is now Captain of the Gale Force, becomes even more of a romantic lynchpin for both Elphaba and Glinda, while Elphaba's sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) rises to power as the mayor of Munchkinland. We also get the long-awaited tornado and landing of a certain house from Kansas (although the film's avoidance of showing Dorothy in anything other than an extreme long shots, from behind, or from her point of view feels overly labored).

The film's clever, double-meaning title expands on the first film's suggestion that "wicked" isn't necessarily evil, but rather a consciously applied label to demonize those who are different or in any way threaten the powers that be. We all know by now that that the Wicked Witch isn't wicked at all and that the Good Witch is just a political puppet, so the idea of being wicked for good takes on a whole new light (visually emphasized by the film's incessant green-pink color scheme). It is a theme that resonates powerfully in today's troubled times, and had the film not been quite so intent on its enormity, it might have landed with even more impact.

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