By Gio Arteaga and Laura Lipcsei
Laura’s Rating: 8.5/10
I really enjoyed the second part of the Wicked franchise—but I will say that a couple of factors made me like the first movie more than the second. Notably, the soundtrack didn’t feel as impactful as the soundtrack of the first movie, and the pacing was a bit wonky at times.
While watching the movie, I was amazed by the gorgeous imagery and terrific acting, but, to my surprise, most of the songs felt lackluster to me. For example, when “No Place Like Home” was sung by Elphaba, even though I adore the message behind the song and thought it augmented the storyline wonderfully, the actual execution of the song left much to be desired and was a bit boring to sit through—decidedly NOT the emotion such a song should evoke when listened to. I was especially disappointed by it since it was one of the original songs added to the movie and I had high expectations (same thing with “The Girl in the Bubble,” just to a lesser extent). On the other hand, the song “No Good Deed” absolutely blew me away. The emotion, the imagery, the pure passion—everything about the execution of the song was spectacular! Although no song can top “Defying Gravity” when it comes to the pure impact it had, I will say that “No Good Deed” remains a close (well, maybe not that close) second. The other two songs which I really enjoyed the execution of were “Wonderful” (such a fun, yet impactful song and scene) and “March of the Witch Hunters” (absolutely vital for the storytelling, and such a chilling scene). However, in the movie, “March of the Witch Hunters” was weirdly sort of split into two parts—which brings me to my second point: wonky pacing.
Throughout the movie, certain scenes either dragged on or felt rushed. For example, the scene with “The Girl in the Bubble” felt like it lasted ages—likely because the entire four minute scene consisted of Glinda sadly reflecting on her life in her room, and all the audience sees is Glinda walking around her room looking emotional, with some (admittedly) cool mirror shots. That’s it. Nothing else in the scene (and the song isn’t even that enjoyable). The worst part is that this scene comes right after “March of the Witch Hunters,” and so while I was watching Glinda mope around all I could think about was what could possibly happen to Elphaba. On the other hand, a scene—or more so a plot point—which was completely brushed over was Nessarose becoming sort of evil which then kind of leads to Boq turning into the Tinman (which, if you ask me, should be a scene that a lot of time is spent on, given the importance of the Tinman in the movie). And then, literally like 30 seconds later, Nessarose is crushed by a house. So we don’t even get to see Nessarose become the Wicked Witch of the East, even though—again—it is an important plot point. However, besides those scenes, the rest of the movie felt fairly well-paced.
So even though I am dogging on the movie a little bit, overall I loved it and would watch it again—the only reason I took off a point and a half from the rating was because of the lackluster songs and weird pacing.
Gio’s Rating: 9/10
For me personally, Wicked: For Good was an amazing movie. For someone who’s developed an eye for easter eggs and symbolic themes and symbols I believe the movie out-performed itself on that aspect. However, I want to be transparent that Wicked: For Good compared to the first Wicked movie is lower, but still amazing.
Yes yes… I’m not an original Wicked fan. However, I do appreciate Broadway, and compared to Broadway, it expands more upon the original story. Many critics argue that the movie is rushed and lacks proper pacing, but the same can be said of the musical. In the Broadway musical, the second act (Wicked: For Good) is only around an hour and only has surface-level connections, while the movie has added an hour and a half to its run time. Because of this, director John M. Chu had to create and expand upon the story itself in the form of adding new songs and exploring character relationships, which I believe he did extremely well. However, I do agree that while you may cast a strong vocalist—such as Cynthia Erivo—if there’s no strong rhythm or flow, the song will not be as strong. For instance, in the first movie, “Defying Gravity” showed there was a strong song, with a strong rhythm, and a strong vocalist with adaptations like a different rift and different timing that was equally as amazing. However, in “No Place Like Home,” the strong vocals were there but the song itself wasn’t as strong. Chu explains how “No Place Like Home” explored how although the animals in Oz were being mistreated, that they needed to fight for their home because there’s ‘no place like home’ which (in theory) was a good idea, but could have been done better.
Unlike its counterpart, “Girl In A Bubble” was simply amazing. The song expanded and showed the audience how Galinda grew as a person—being in this role—and how, through this facade, Galinda is the same little girl who never had powers; and the song explains that very perfectly. It’s fragile, soft, but has depth and raw emotion, which is something that Ariana Grande conveyed, and, in my opinion, something the scene needed. Another notable detail was when Grande looked over the balcony to see everything that was going on. Which, by the way, Ethan Slayter did AMAZING in. Another one of my favorite parts of the movie was when Nessarose got crushed by a flying house. Another was when she started singing “No Good Deed” and, with Cynthia and Ariana, started singing “For Good” because I really was changed FOR GOOD.
Overall, the movie was amazing. Yes, the movie has its flaws that are very minor with timing BUT both Chu, Grande, and Erivo have done wonders with this movie and it earns the rating of 9/10.