Wicked For Good: Sea of Colour & Music As Beloved Oz Tale Reaches Epic Conclusion

After twelve long months Wicked: For Good has officially hit cinemas, delivering an epic conclusion to the first hit film.

Fans were treated to a two hour and twenty minute finale that saw them laugh and cry up to the films final moments.

However, it wasn’t without its flaws.

Wicked: For Good and For the bad

Overall Wicked: For Good leaves very little for audiences to dislike as it leaps back to life in a sea of colour and the hit songs fans of the stage show have come to know and love.

Picking up some years after the events of Wicked Part One, For Good wastes no time delivering song after song as the scene is set for our favourite witches.

With Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) living in exile, the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh)  have continued their propaganda campaign with Glinda (Ariana Grande) at the helm as they promote “Glinda The Good” in their attempt to maintain control over the citizens of Oz.

Wicked: For Good asserts what we all knew, it has been beautifully crafted, perfectly cast and executed to perfection. Grande and Erivo prove once again their ability deliver flawless vocals and powerful performances that have audiences weeping, multiple times. Jonathan Bailey continues his role as the heroic heartthrob Prince Fiyero, torn between two worlds as he struggles to make right of his decisions and follow his heart.

As much as the shiny lights and bright songs pull the audience into the dazzling and dark underbelly of Oz it’s hard not to notice the jagged pace at which the second half of this film takes place.

Easily one of the most interesting parts of this colourful backstory is how Dorothy and her friends came to be, the timeline of the Tin Man, Scarecrow and The Cowardly Lion feels rushed and try as you might, feels impossible to line up with the original narrative setup in The Wizard Of Oz. Equally so Elphaba’s sister Nessarose Thropp (Marissa Bode), who seems to meet her inevitable fate in a much faster and unexpected timeline than the original.

For those unfamiliar with the original storyline Wicked Part One drops enough breadcrumbs to lead you in this direction, however the setup doesn’t quite lead to the payoff one expects. Dorothy and her friends timeline from her arrival in Oz to their meeting, journey to the wizard and hunt for the Wicked witch happens in such quick succession it’s a struggle to piece together. But is it worth the watch? Absolutely.

Not that it matters entirely, Wicked has always established itself within the world of the original film, setting up a creative backstory without ever claiming to explicitly be the exclusive concurrent narrative. Suspending disbelief and remembering that these films are works of their own makes this little narrative bump a lot easier to overlook, despite the inconsistencies along the way.

Ultimately Wicked: For Good is an epic conclusion to what will long be remembered as a brilliant stage to film adaptation that is going to be treasured for generations.