Hello everybody. I'm Dan Merurl here with my thoughts on Wicked for Good, which hits theaters this weekend. As you can see, it's been a while since I've done one of these. I am on the road. So, I saw Wicked for Good last night. I'm seeing another movie tonight, and I have to travel a little far away from home to see these films. So, sometimes you have to put up with, let's call it, a temporary setup.
Wicked for Good is, of course, the sequel to last year's smash hit, which pretty neatly adapted the first act of the musical and ended at essentially intermission. This movie adapts the second act of the musical. This was a continuous production, so the entire team and the cast are back to continue the story of Alphaba and Glenda. Some time has passed since the first film, and Alphaba is now in exile, detested, and feared around Oz as the wicked witch of the West. Glenda has assumed a powerful position in Oz as Glenda the Good, the people's witch, though she's not much more than a propaganda tool for the wizard and Madam Morble.
I actually approached Dune and Wicked in very similar ways in that I saw the first movie of the two movies that exist right now before I had read the book or seen the musical. And then in between movies, I actually got more familiar with the source material. So I read Dune in between Dune part one and Dune part two. And then this past summer, I went to see Wicked while I was in New York for some other stuff. So I watched the first movie in these franchises with basically no base of knowledge and then watched the second movie having known a lot more about the source material. After seeing the musical, my opinion mirrored what I think a lot of other people have said. The first act of the musical is much stronger, while the second act is okay but less focused and less memorable.
But that actually made me more excited about seeing Wicked for Good because I thought that it presented an opportunity for John Mchu, for the screenwriters Winnie Holtzman and Dana Fox to go in to reassess basically the second act and to make some improvements. And it could actually be a case where the adaptation of something surpasses the original because you have the opportunity to go in and make these changes.
Well, Wicked for Good remains a faithful adaptation of the Broadway musical, including its faults, because I had the same issues with this movie that I had with act two of the musical. And I don't think that it is a comparison issue. I don't think that I only had issues with Wicked for Good because I've now seen the musical. I'm pretty confident that I would have had the same issues that I have with Wicked for Good regardless. I think part of it is something that's not necessarily a flaw with a lot of musicals. It's a trait of a lot of musicals, which is that the first act is more enticing. It's catchier. It grabs your attention more, and then things slow down for the second act. That doesn't make something bad. There's plenty of musicals that have succeeded with that kind of structure, but that is the structure that Wicked has.
But act two of Wicked is also very sloppy. It's where the musical brings in characters and elements from Dorothy's time in Oz, and their poor integration that we saw on stage, I think, is carried over to the screen. Wicked for Good is, for lack of a better word, herkyjerky. It whips its characters through huge plot twists that often feel awkward and forced, and it's something that I hoped would be massaged at the screenwriting stage, but wasn't.
Part of it may be that one of the two credited screenwriters of Wicked for Good and also for the first film is Winnie Holtzman who wrote the book of the musical. And there was some confusion about this. I remember when I reviewed Wicked last year. When I say the book of the musical, I don't mean the book that Wicked was based off of originally. The book of a musical means the spoken dialogue portions. A lot of the character development and character arcs. She wrote that for the original musical and also was the co-screenwriter of this movie. And I'm not necessarily sure if the person who wrote the work that I think originally has some flaws is the best person to come in and maybe take a sober assessment of that second act and see where there could be some improvements.
There is a co-screenwriter Dana Fox and there is also some additional material that's put into the film. There are a couple of new numbers. There is an expansion of the animal escape/rescue plotline storyline, but the new stuff didn't really do a whole lot for me. I wish that that energy had been focused on revising what's there rather than adding to what's there.
What does carry over from the first Wicked is a collection of terrific performances and some really enchanting filmmaking. Cynthia Revo and Ariana Grande don't miss a beat and prove once again why they were terrific choices to play Alphaba and Glenda. You buy these two as friends, separated by distance and by their own choices. And even with the story's flaws, it is this core story that remains powerful and effective.
To take a bit of a side journey here, Universal is once again pushing Cynthia Arivo for best lead actress and Ariana Grande for best supporting actress. And if that was category fraud last year, which quite frankly I think it was, it is category grand larceny this year. Because first of all, I suspect if you bring a stopwatch into the movie, Ariana Grande has just as much or more screen time than Cynthia Arivo. Maybe Arivo has just the tiniest bit more, but even more so on a structural level. I think that the first Wicked was Alphaba's movie. The second Wicked is very much Glenda's movie because Glenda really is in many ways the heart of the film.
Jeff Goldblum's Wizard gets more screen time in this one, including his own song, and he continues to turn his oddball Jeff Goldblum energy into oddball Wizard of Oz energy. I was admittedly skeptical of his casting after the first movie, but now having seen the second movie, I think that he was actually a pretty good choice.
Michelle Yo doesn't bring the strongest musical talent to her part as Madam Morble, but she does make a great villain. Wicked for Good requires her to be much more sinister than the first movie, and she excels in those moments.
And Jonathan Bailey's Fiero got, I think, most of his heartthrob moments out of the way in part one. Here, he's mostly the stoic love interest of honestly multiple characters, and he does what he can with what's on the page, despite the fact that he sort of disappears for a chunk of the movie.
I also continue to be a fan of John Mchu's direction of the movie. I know that not everyone was a fan of the look for the first film, but I was. And I was once again marveling in this movie at Wicked for Good's cinematography and production design. It is hard to reimagine things as iconic and imagery as iconic as The Wizard of Oz, especially because this movie directly overlaps with events that were depicted in the 1939 film. But I love the vision that's brought to this film. It is a re-imagining of the world of Oz and I think a really interesting one, but it also incorporates all of these familiar elements, things that have sort of entered the culture from the 1939 film.
I think when you look at the awards season, production design, set decoration, costume design will all be very much in the mix. And I think that John Mchu should be as well. But if he was going to get nominated for best director, especially at the Academy Awards, I think that last year was his year and it didn't happen. I don't see a better chance of it happening this year.
When it comes to judging film adaptations of books or musicals or anything else really, it can get tricky and the results may vary. But I found that with Wicked, my thoughts on the movie and my thoughts on the musical are pretty much in lock step. The biggest difference between act two of Wicked on Stage and Wicked for Good is that Wicked for Good is longer, which I think amplifies its flaws. And in forming a final opinion, I have to weigh the strong performances, the outstanding technical elements, the parts that I did like, the moments that do work against a lot of things that I think don't work very well. Ultimately, I'm ranking Wicked for Good in the upper reaches of it's fine. That's really as high as I can go. too much of it just left me cold and a little bit frustrated.
If you're familiar with Wicked already, I don't think that enough was changed in this version to shift your opinion either way, either more positive or more negative. If you're not familiar with Wicked, I don't want to necessarily discourage you from seeing this because especially Cynthia and Ariana Grande are fantastic in the movie. Their performances really are almost worth the price of admission alone. And and this happens sometimes when I'm in the middle of a movie. People think that I'm saying it's a bad film. It's not a bad film. Even if I was a little bit let down by it. So, if you don't know what to expect, obviously, as always, go in with an open mind and make up your own decision. But my advice might be don't expect what you got with the first movie. I'm not going to say lower your expectations, but I would just say lower your anticipations. And who knows, maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised.