Wicked: For Good (2025)
Jon M. Chu’s second helping of all things Oz-related manages something increasingly rare in blockbuster filmmaking: it trusts you to think. Not constantly, mind you. There are still enough CGI flourishes and sweeping camera movements to keep the spectacle-hungry satisfied. But beneath the emerald-tinted surface lies a film genuinely interested in how people become villains, not through grand evil schemes but through a series of smaller, sadder compromises.
The story continues exactly where the first film left off. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has fled into isolation, now officially branded as the enemy of the state. Glinda (Ariana Grande), meanwhile, finds herself trapped in a gilded cage of her own making, complicit in a regime she’s beginning to recognise as fundamentally rotten. Their separation drives everything that follows.
Erivo deserves particular recognition. She brings something fierce and wounded to Elphaba’s journey, never letting the character slip into one-dimensional martyrdom. When she tears into “No Good Deed,” you feel decades of accumulated hurt compressed into five minutes. Grande proves equally capable, finding unexpected layers in Glinda’s slow awakening to moral responsibility. The two actors share an undeniable chemistry, which makes their ideological divide all the more painful to watch.
Chu knows when to step back. The confrontation between Elphaba and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum, doing his usual charming-yet-sinister routine) unfolds without frantic editing or unnecessary interruption. It’s theatrical in the best sense: actors given space to inhabit difficult emotions rather than rush past them towards the next set piece.
The problems, when they surface, tend towards indulgence. Some musical numbers feel over-choreographed to within an inch of their lives, sacrificing spontaneity for visual precision. At two hours and twenty-something minutes, the middle section drags. Certain supporting characters get barely a look-in, functioning as plot furniture rather than people.
Alice Brooks’ cinematography captures Oz beautifully, though occasionally the colour grading pushes things into cartoonish territory. The production design remains impressive throughout, creating spaces that feel both fantastical and strangely plausible. Perhaps that’s deliberate, given how much the story concerns itself with the gap between mythology and reality.
What makes the film more than just competent adaptation is its willingness to sit with uncomfortable questions. The Wizard’s administration runs on carefully chosen stories and the smart use of scapegoats. Glinda has to choose between embracing corruption in its entirety or trying to make small changes from the inside. These tensions resonate without needing to say that they matter.
The finale earns its emotional weight honestly, through character work rather than manipulation. When “For Good” gets reprised, it lands because we’ve watched these two women make choices that pull them apart despite their genuine affection for each other. That’s tragedy, really. Not the operatic kind, but the smaller, more human variety.
In my opinion, Wicked: For Good succeeds far more than it stumbles. It’s that rare Hollywood production willing to leave moral ambiguity intact rather than tidy everything into neat resolutions. Not perfect, then, but satisfying in ways that matter.