Wicked--For-Good-featureImage via Warner Bros.
By
Erik Kain
Published 23 minutes ago
Erik is a writer based in Arizona. He's written about video games and the entertainment industry for over a decade, and previously covered politics and culture. He also runs a Substack newsletter about entertainment and culture, a YouTube channel about these same topics and designs tabletop RPGs. He lives with his pack of three kids and three dogs in the mountains, and manages to find time to write inbetween daily chores. He was a 2014 nominee for a Shorty Award. His work has appeared in Forbes, The Atlantic, National Review, Mother Jones and elsewhere. He also writes poetry and fiction and has big dreams about writing scripts someday.
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Wicked was a massive hit when it flew into theaters back in November 2024. Despite the film's long runtime, Wicked's worldwide box office gross topped $756 million on a $150 million budget, becoming the highest-grossing adaptation of a Broadway musical to date.
Wicked was also a critical darling, with ten Academy Award nominations and wins for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. The John M. Chu film was a smash hit with critics as well, earning an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 95% Popcornmeter score. The consensus was clear: Wicked was not only a great adaptation of the Broadway musical, it was a great movie filled with color and song and powerful leads in Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
There were two oft-repeated complaints about Wicked, however. First, that the 160-minute runtime was simply too long. Second, and perhaps more salient, a lot of fans were worried about Universal's decision to split the musical into two films. With the release of the sequel, Wicked: For Good, that last concern has proven to be right on the money, with a Rotten Tomatoes score that underscores that disappointment. Here are the 5 biggest problems with Wicked: For Good.
5 'Wicked: For Good' Is Too Much of a Downer
Ethan Slater after he's transformed into the Tin Man in 'Wicked: For Good'Image via Universal Pictures
There was no avoiding the first of Wicked: For Good's problems. The second act is simply much less fun than the first, and that's true of the Broadway show as well. It's an issue that many fans hoped the adaptation would fix. Unfortunately, the movie version only accentuates these problems. Whereas the first film is whimsical and bright right up until the disastrous encounter between Elphaba (Erivo) and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), the second is oppressively bleak. There were certainly some grim moments in Wicked, as Elphaba learns the fate of the Animals and faces discrimination from her fellow students at Shiz, but Wicked: For Good is almost devoid of fun. Elphaba's confused motivations certainly don't help matters.
Partly, this is due to some changes from the Broadway show. Many moments played for laughs on stage are given a somber tone here. The one real moment of comic relief — a slap fight between Elphaba and Glinda (Grande) — felt weirdly macabre given the context. The pair were fighting just paces away from the house where Elphaba's sister, Nessa (Marissa Bode) was just crushed to death. Ultimately, while Wicked was a spirited adventure through Oz, Wicked: For Good is tonally all over the map. Mostly it's a depressing film that even a mostly happy ending can't fix.
4 'Wicked: For Good' Has Terrible Pacing
Wicked: For Good is 23 minutes shorter than Wicked, but the movie's messy pacing makes it feel much longer. The movie feels both overly long and wildly rushed, which is twice as frustrating as being just one or the other. While it begins with some sweeping shots of Oz and the Wicked Witch on her flying broom as she attempts to sabotage the Wizard's Yellow Brick Road, it quickly veers into a puzzling blend of slog and frenzy.
The first half of Wicked: For Good inches along at a glacial pace, laden with exposition and dull musical numbers. But after Elphaba's stirring "No Good Deed" ballad, the film seems hellbent on reaching its titular duet, "For Good," as fast as possible. The action and the character motivations at this point feel perplexing and hurried. While Broadway purists would have certainly thrown a fit, for this film to work on its own, it needed to lean more heavily into what makes movies (clock) tick: better and more interesting action, actual conflict, and more challenging obstacles for Glinda and Elphaba to overcome. Instead, we get a bunch of mopey sad songs and confused motivations from our leads before racing through the final arc, making Glinda's ultimate house-cleaning less satisfying than it ought to have been.
3 'Wicked: For Good's Plot Is All Over the Place
One problem with taking a 45-minute act from a musical and adapting it into a 2-hour film is a lot of the little plot holes become far more glaring. An adaptation has the opportunity to fill those holes, but Wicked: For Good doesn't bother. Instead, the film doubles down on all the moments that simply don't make any sense.
One example of this is when Elphaba is almost captured by the Wizard's guards. Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) shows up to rescue her, and then urges her to fly away on her broom to safety. Reluctantly, she does exactly this, leaving Fiyero to his fate. But why doesn't he simply fly away with her? It's not explained, and it makes very little sense. A similarly weird moment takes place during "For Good" when Elphaba and Glinda belt out the heartwarming duet, while Dorothy is locked up beneath them. The touching number feels a bit less powerful knowing the two women are complicit in kidnapping a child.
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Posts 4 By Therese Lacson 4 days agoOf course, the biggest plot hole that the movie needed to fix from the Broadway musical was Fiyero's decision, as the Scarecrow, to join Dorothy, the vengeful Tin Man / Boq (Ethan Slater) and the Cowardly Lion (Colman Domingo) on a mission to kill the Wicked Witch in the first place. Boq's motivations are made clear, as are the Lion's (precarious though they may be), but why Fiyero? Even a quick explanation that he'd lost his brain — or his memories — would have sufficed. As it stands, very little in the film's story makes sense, and because it's stretched out into an entire movie instead of the shorter half of a stage play, we have far too much time to consider the ramifications.
2 The Lighting, Special Effects and Music Don't Live Up to 'Wicked'
Elphaba and Glinda share a swing, surrounded by sparkling lights in Wicked: For Good.Image via Universal Pictures
The pacing and story aren't the only areas where Wicked: For Good pales in comparison to the first film. Wicked was awe-inspiring, with incredibly choreographed dances to accompany its stirring ballads. Wicked: For Good has none of the verve and life of the first film, and it can't all be chocked up to less impressive songs.
During the romantic duet, "As Longs as You're Mine," Elphaba and Fiyero sing phrases such as "Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight" while standing far apart from one another. Elphaba takes off her cloak during the opening moments of the song, only to put on more clothes, followed awkwardly by Fiyero lustily removing his suspenders. The lighting during this scene is dark to the point of distraction. This is Bailey's big moment in Wicked: For Good and one can't help but compare it to "Dancing Through Life" in Wicked, with its crackling energy, endless motion and wildly creative set design.
Meanwhile, the two new songs from composer Stephen Schwartz each fall flat. Elphaba's "No Place Like Home" at least feels like a fun nod to The Wizard of Oz. "The Girl in the Bubble," however — while cleverly filmed--is a dull slog in an already dull film that makes poor use of Grande's talents. Indeed, Wicked: For Good seems not to know what to do with Grande, and all her comedic charm from the first film is lost here. If the song had been half as good as the camera work, it might have justified the addition, but it would have been a lot more fun if it had the energy of "Popular."
Even the costumes feel downgraded, with the unintentionally hilarious Scarecrow (who bore a startling resemblance to Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool) by far the worst offender. The sets never feel as unique or inspired, though perhaps the one exception to this is the wedding scene, resplendently pink and gaudy, though it's trampled over before we can really take it all in. And while the special effects are generally quite good, especially when it comes to magical tornadoes, broomstick witches, steampunk bubbles, and flying monkeys, the flashback of a de-aged Jeff Goldblum was jarring, to say the least.
1 Splitting 'Wicked' Into Two Parts Was a Mistake
Elphaba, Glinda, and the Wizard dancing in "Wonderful" in 'Wicked: For Good'Image via Universal Pictures
The central issue at the heart of all of these problems is the unfortunate decision to split the Broadway musical into two halves. Taking a two-and-a-half hour stage show and nearly doubling the runtime ultimately killed the first film's momentum, leaving the sequel feeling as hollow as the heartless Tin Man. Wicked felt like a complete movie, brimming with conflict and exciting twists and turns. The second is jumbled and haphazard and lifeless by comparison; even its talented stars seem less invested. Somber Fiyero, sad Glinda and a constantly confused Elphaba are all far less fun than their previous iterations. Michelle Yeoh feels oddly unenthusiastic as Madame Morrible. Even Goldblum's Wizard seems a bit deflated this time around.
Meanwhile, the inciting incident — Elphaba's return to the Emerald City in order to confront the Wizard, who she ends up almost joining before stumbling upon his basement filled with caged Animals — comes off as redundant. Most of the additional runtime is padding rather than necessary additions to the story, and where we needed more fleshed out explanations or character motivations, the movie stuck stubbornly to the original. It is not at all hard to imagine a version of these two films edited down into one, the padding and exposition and flashbacks excised and several of its drearier songs (as well as the new ones) cut.
Ultimately, what could have been one great movie is now two parts. Wicked is, indeed, great. Wicked: For Good is entertaining in spite of itself. The talented cast does most of the heavy lifting, but the weight of a sloppy script and weaker source material are too much for even powerhouses like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande to bear.
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Wicked: For Good
PG
Drama
Fantasy
Romance
8
10
Release Date
November 21, 2025
Runtime
137 Minutes
Director
Jon M. Chu
Writers
Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox, Gregory Maguire
Cast
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Cynthia Erivo
Elphaba
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Ariana Grande
Glinda
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Wicked
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