Wicked: For Good arrives a year after Wicked with awards-season buzz and the promise of a finale. It brings back a starry ensemble and many of the same motifs that made the first film a box office story. It also doubles down on what did not work. As a capstone, it is grand in intention and flat in effect.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande return as Elphaba and Glinda, with Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, and Michelle Yeoh getting a bit more to do. There is less table setting this time, which should help the tension build, but the direction and design keep undercutting the parts that are working.
The color grading is drab and the staging looks airless, as if the film is intent on grounding Oz until the wonder leaks out. A more restrained palette can serve a darker story, but the choice here drains personality. The Wizard of Oz remains a touchstone because it felt otherworldly and new. This sequel either will not or cannot chase that sensation. The CGI has the goopy, weightless quality of a rushed postproduction cycle, which clashes with the moments of practical craft that briefly shine.
The storytelling is overstuffed and oddly didactic. Wicked: For Good piles on race allegories, animal-rights threads, and a blunt good-versus-elite frame until subtext becomes text. That would be fine if the perspective felt fresh. Instead the film explains its ideas and then explains them again while the edit hurries from plot point to plot point. Energy gets drowned in mechanics.
The music rarely sticks. There are clear attempts to engineer a new showstopper on the order of Defying Gravity, yet the numbers blur together. Erivo and Grande sing with power, but the choreography and production design seldom elevate the compositions. A derailed wedding subplot and a handful of half-ideas add to the sense of a film making it up as it goes. A late standoff sequence between Glinda and Elphaba sparring with broomsticks and wands is so laughably half-hearted the edit has no choice but to cut it off after a few seconds.
Individual turns fare better than the whole. Jonathan Bailey is the surprise, able to balance charm and melancholy without forcing it. Erivo plays the material straight, which only sharpens the mismatch between the deathly serious tone and a world that should feel enchanted. Grande’s take on Glinda toggles from ditzy to commanding as needed, yet the character never coheres. Goldblum’s Wizard and Yeoh’s headmistress feel stranded at the edges.
Jon M. Chu has shown real pop instincts, most notably in Crazy Rich Asians, with mixed results elsewhere in In the Heights and Now You See Me 2. Here the choices feel corporate and risk averse. Two features, roughly five hours, were meant to give this story room. They mostly expose the limits of the adaptation.
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What lingers is a sense of missed opportunity. Wicked: For Good is a costly, carefully marketed send off that rarely feels magical. The first film was a misfire for me, and the second follows suit, louder and heavier but not better. Oz deserved a stranger vision or a bolder one. This is neither.
Score: 3/10
Wicked: For Good (2025)
- Cast: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Colman Domingo, Bethany Weaver, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Peter Dinklage
- Director: Jon M. Chu
- Genre: Adventure, Family, Musical, Romance
- Runtime: 137 minutes
- Rated: PG
- Release Date: November 20, 2025
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