Wicked: Part Two

A good adaptation (Spoilers)

Wicked: For Good, formerly Wicked: Part Two, adapts the second half of the stage musical, which in turn was an adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s novel of the same name. I highly recommend reading my review of the previous film, if only because the synopsis of this movie gives away several important plot twists.

Picking up “12 tide turns” after the end of the last movie, Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) is trying and failing to inform people that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is a fraud and exploiting the Animals. At the same time, Glinda Upland (Ariana Grande-Butera) has become the Wizard’s propaganda mouthpiece. Meanwhile, Fiyero Tigelaar (Jonathan Bailey) has become the captain of the Gale Force and is forced to be Oz’s power couple with Glinda.

Elphaba’s Loved Ones

After hearing Fiyero, her canonical love interest, seemingly turn against her, Elphaba laments, “Oh, Fiyero,” and flashes back to happier times at Shiz Academy. What’s funny is that while Fiyero is there, Glinda’s the one who has her head on Elphaba’s shoulder. That relationship actually manages to be more gay than in the stage show because here. Elphaba and Glinda outright say “I love you” to each other as part of their final goodbye.

Elphaba’s not the only one who has a flashback. We get a scene of Young Ginda (Scarlett Spears) at a birthday party, showing that she’s always been spoiled, the center of attention, and wanted magic, all things we already know. It’s a much weaker scene than the one with young Elphaba (Karis Musongole) and Nessarose (Cesily Collette Taylor), which fleshes out the Thropp family dynamic and shows that both sisters were once sweet kids before becoming more angry and bitter as adults.

While the previous film hinted that Nessa (Marissa Bode) wasn’t quite as nice as she seemed, this movie makes it clear she’s a very selfish person. Her first scene is her angrily disregarding that Elphaba was branded public enemy #1 (which Nessa should realize is b******t) because Elphaba wasn’t there to comfort her when their father died—the same father who hated Elphaba, by the way.

Define irony. For all Nessa’s talk about wanting to do things herself, she’s all take and no give in relationships. Or the woman in the wheelchair who wants independence becomes a tyrant who restricts people’s movement. How about the “tragically beautiful” Thropp sister with the “perfectly acceptable color” turns out to be the more wicked one? 

Good and Bad Changes

As in the stage show, Elphaba enchants Nessa’s shoes so Nessa can move without her chair. In the musical, it gives her the ability to walk since an actual wheelchair user hasn’t portrayed Nessa until the previous film. In the movie, Nessa gains the ability to float in the air, which is even better. For one, it plays into the idea that “everyone deserves the chance to fly.” There’s also the fact that the movie places less emphasis on her body needing “fixing.”

One of my issues with the previous film is that while Goldblum is perfectly cast as an evil Willy Wonka-type figure, his singing wasn’t as good as his acting. Still, I was shocked by how much they changed the Wizard’s big solo, “Wonderful.” Glinda is now there to do the heavy lifting, not only with the song, but with the final temptation of Elphaba Thropp.

The film version of “Wonderful” comes across as much more blatantly self-serving. It cuts most of the self-deprecating lines, like the Wizard calling himself a “dime a dozen Mediocrates”. Coupled with how scapegoating the Aminals was clearly his idea in this version, the Wizard is worse than he usually is in the show, though still not as bad as the one in the novel version of Wicked.

The films add a scene at the end of each movie in which the Animals all return from hiding, with Doctor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) even about to teach again and presumably regaining the power of speech. I know this is a kids movie (though “As Long As You’re Mine” certainly pushes that), but all the Animal racism just magically going away despite all the social conditioning was a little hard for me to swallow.

My Final Verdict

As I stated in my review of the previous movie, “For Good” is my favorite song in Wicked, so that was going to be my gauge for whether I liked this sequel. Ervivo and Grande-Butera’s performances of the song gave me goosebumps. Yes, I saw this film during winter in the American Midwest, but I prefer to think that it was the performances.

During my last review, I wondered whether this was a good movie musical. Well, both movies utilize the medium well. Wicked is about multiple people hiding behind personas, and in close-ups, we see the more subtle moments when the mask slips. Perhaps most notable in the last movie, where Elphaba starts crying during the ballroom scene.

Ultimately, Chicago is still the gold standard for adapting a stage musical into a film, but Wicked: Part One and Wicked: For Good were both really well done despite their flaws. The main thing I liked about this movie was the acting. Some of the best moments were improvised. Given this is a musical, the main thing I liked should have been the singing, but with only a few exceptions, that was well done as well.