Movie Review - Wicked: For Good

So back when The Flash was running on the CW, there was always one small thing that felt a little off about the show, especially in the early seasons. Barry and Iris’ relationship, specifically the way Iris’ involvement in that relationship, evolves always felt like it was something that happened because it was a foregone conclusion. Barry and Iris are married in the comics, within the confines of the show, any alternate versions of themselves they encounter end up together, why shouldn’t Iris just capitulate to grand scale cosmic fate and just go with the guy it seems all of creation thinks she needs to be with?

Now granted, the show did eventually fix this issue somewhat by having the two develop chemistry through the romantic relationship and allow that relationship to be realistically tested but the issue was always the beginning. It points back to one of my biggest narrative pet peeves: the audience knows something is supposed to happen, especially in a prequel, so shortcuts are taken to get the audience to that point.

I have not seen the play Wicked, nor have I read the book. I have watched The Wizard of Oz, have a few vague recollections of a show called Tin Man that may or may not have had a Deschanel sister in the cast as Dorothy, definitely watched a prequel with James Franco in the lead but remember nothing from it, and saw the theatrical Wicked multiple times, including most recently earlier this week. The point in all that is to say by and large that my interpretation of Wicked: For Good is based entirely on what exists between the movies directly related to it without taking into consideration the source material. Based purely on that, after seeing Wicked: For Good, I fail to understand why this movie should have been broken up into two parts.

The biggest issue with Wicked: For Good is scale inconsistency. What I mean by scale is how large or small the conflict is within the world of Oz. The best movies that deal with grand-scale moral battles of good against evil can take the massive stakes and juxtapose them with some personal internal or external conflict. Really it goes beyond just juxtaposing them because to do it well, these two conflicts have to be interwoven. The conflicts in Wicked: For You stem from the same place and do intersect at times, but it always feels like Elphaba’s interactions with her classmates are in an entirely different movie from her interactions with the Wizard.

It’s also a bit of a problem that, because these character interactions feel divorced from each other scene-to-scene, Elphaba and Glinda don’t have a ton to do in this movie besides be forced through the events of The Wizard of Oz. They don’t have much, if any, autonomy in the plot, but are definitely present. Even the big climactic moment where Glinda makes a proactive decision to go to Elphaba in the third act, Elphaba had already made up her mind on what she is going to do.

Finally, and either most or least important depending on who you ask, there isn’t really a memorable musical number in this entire movie. I went into Wicked knowing about the existence of Defying Gravity but left blown away by Dancing Through Life, The Wizard and I, and Popular. Other recent examples would be like In The Heights, No Me Diga, 96,000, and Paciencia y Fe from In The Heights or even something like Does Your Mother Know from Mamma Mia. While I will remember the existence of the track For Good, it won’t be because of anything I saw in the film itself. It will be because it is the subtitle of the film, it’s used in every trailer and TV spot for this film in the leadup to its release, and because for the last few months before every single theatrical release I had to see a Google Pixel and iPhone sing it to each other as part of a sponsored “turn off your phone in the theater” PSA.

Still, the set design is great, as is the production design, and as are the performances by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. The problem is that, unless you are a die-hard Wicked fan, I’m not sure there is anything gained by watching this movie. Basically, the fundamental question about what led to the creation of the Wicked Witch of the West is answered, in its entirety, by the first movie and this almost entirely feels like an epilogue.

 ★★★