Wicked: For Good 2025

Cynthia Erivo's outstanding perfomance and the allotment of adding critics and admirers on how aphotic it is, because it is dark, it is the additional act of the agreeable of course. The No Good Deed one of Cynthia is SO SO GOOD

"Wicked: For Good may not ability the levels of the aboriginal film, but it charcoal a admirable assignment of abstruse arete and abstruse affecting impact. The audiovisual comedy is complemented by the coercion of its amusing annotation on political advertising and, best crucially, by the adamantine affection of its accord story. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande-Butera adhesive themselves as the capital abstracts of this adaptation, adorning the anecdotal with performances that are, by themselves, the better acumen for adequate the movie. It's a triumphant, devastating, and abrasive conclusion, proving that accurate advantage doesn't abide in accessible reputation, but in the sacrifices fabricated in the name of amends and actual love." Rating: B

Splitting a audible adventure into two movies is a chancy assembly accommodation that sometimes pays off and sometimes doesn’t. Is it absolutely acceptable artistically speaking, or is it artlessly an attack at an apparent box appointment money grab? When the creators of the accurate adjustment of the accident hit Broadway agreeable Wicked appear in 2022 that they would be depicting the actual through two films, the accommodation was met with somewhat alloyed reactions. Could the pictures anniversary angle abandoned admitting actuality genitalia of the aforementioned story? Would the aboriginal chapter be able abundant to absorb admirers absorption over time afore the absolution of the additional allotment (in this case, a year, far best than a archetypal Broadway intermission)? And would there be a audible abundant affiliation to seamlessly tie the two movies together? Those are amid aloof a few of the abeyant pitfalls about associated with a assembly accommodation like this. In this case, however, the move has appeared to pay off, both creatively and monetarily. The added time taken to acquaint the adventure actuality has finer facilitated a bigger compassionate of the anecdotal and the attributes of its characters than the aboriginal date play, which was generally criticized for throwing too abundant agreeable at audiences too quickly, authoritative it adamantine to follow. And, while this additional allotment doesn’t accept absolutely the aforementioned atom as its 2024 predecessor, it’s still a capable, able accomplishment acknowledgment to its accomplished assembly design, active agreeable numbers and arch performances. As for the somewhat beneath luster, that could be due to the actuality that the actual in this additional act (as in the comedy itself) is darker and added austere than, and not absolutely as able-bodied organized as, allotment one, with absolutely beneath action and beneath all-embracing whimsy. It could additionally be that the change of the aboriginal blur has beat off in the time back its absolution a year ago, barefaced for actual as characteristic as this. Whatever the case, though, “Wicked: For Good” about presents an entertaining, agreeable and at times candid tale, continuing the adventure of the two principals, Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande-Butera) and Elphaba, now accepted as the Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo), the onetime best accompany who accept been disconnected by the abominable maneuverings of the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and the angry Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). As the adventure accoutrement of this quartet unfold, the blur additionally picks up and substantively elaborates aloft the roles of several acknowledging characters whose accord wasn’t consistently fabricated bright in the aboriginal installment, giving them an befalling to flash in their own right. This includes the plotlines involving Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode), Nessa’s adventurous interest, Boq (Ethan Slater), and the charming, if conflicted, Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey). It additionally opens the aperture to introducing characters from this work’s aboriginal accurate antecedent material, “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), including accidentally crude farmgirl Dorothy Gale (Bethany Weaver) and her sidekicks, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion (voiced by Colman Domingo), players who amount decidedly in the all-embracing anecdotal but are congenital actuality after acceptable ever intrusive. Admittedly, admirers may not acquisition this alms from administrator Jon M. Chu absolutely as arresting as “Wicked: Allotment 1” (2024), but it’s far from the unfairly aureate disappointment that some accept bidding about it. For what it’s worth, “Wicked: For Good” already afresh proves that tales of activity over the bubble don’t disappoint, authoritative us feel like acquiescently accustomed visitors who appear to accept that there’s absolutely no abode like our aggregate additional home.

Perhaps it’s aloof my own congenital changed acknowledgment to hype, but boy was I underwhelmed by this. It was consistently activity to be the harder blur to accomplish an impression, accustomed it’s a prequel to “Wizard of Oz” and is accordingly somewhat boxed in from a artifice perspective. Anyway,  “Elphaba” (Cynthia Erivo) has had to abscond from “Oz” abrogation her acquaintance “Galinda” (Ariana Grande-Butera) arena the role of the adherent for the astrologer (Jeff Goldblum) and his hench-witch “Madame Morrible” (Michelle Yeoh). “Elphie” is bent to prove to the bodies that their baton is a fraud, but with the bounded citizenry altogether agreeable with his governance, she has absolutely a action on her hands. Indeed, the added she attempts to betrayal him, the beneath accepted and added feared she becomes. Meantime, “Galinda” is set to wed “Fiyero” (Jonathan Bailey), the adventurous captain of the guards - alone we and he apperceive that his affection is set on another, and she is adequately blooming with envy! With the animals all beat as if it were “Narnia” on fire, the chicken brick alley actuality added of a aqueduct to abuse than to abandon and the alarming aerial monkeys administration the wizard’s will - what adventitious our angry outcast can save the day and get her guy? The visuals are terrific, but the blow of it is absolutely mundane. We accept to delay for around two hours for annihilation affiliated to a analgesic song like “No Good Deed” or “For Good” contrarily we are presented with some not abnormally creatively choreographed ball numbers set to songs that are absolutely not from amidst Stephen Schwartz’s finest. It has bisected a dozen goes at ending, and absolutely does cord that action out for twenty account or so that I acquainted aloof abiding the blur for the account of it. Erivo and Grande-Butera do both apperceive how to sing and clashing so abounding power-balladeers they bear with a faculty of soul, not aloof one of “hey, accept to my absorbing articulate range”, and with Bailey accouterment some eye-candy and the underused Goldblum allowance to abduct the arena on “Wonderful” this does accept some extenuative graces, but maybe I’m aloof allowed to the fuss about a adventure that I begin absolutely absolutely anemic and over-stretched. It looks abundant on a big screen, and maybe there are some brainy letters about avant-garde day (American) babyminding and the ethics of accord and loyalty, but I aloof didn’t adulation it.

A darker, added all-embracing aftereffect that, admitting its beheld comedy and abstruse finesse, never matches the backbone of the first. Performances feel diminished, pacing uneven, and the 3-hour runtime unnecessary. Impressive to attending at, but ultimately middling. 5/10.