Movie review: Wicked: For Good

I left the theatre after Wicked: For Good feeling surprisingly underwhelmed. Given the scale of production and the anticipation surrounding it, I expected a richer, more resonant experience.

Instead, the film struggled to balance spectacle with storytelling and often felt emotionally thin. There were moments where I could see the potential for something powerful, yet the movie rarely gave those moments the space or clarity they needed to land.

The pacing was one of the biggest issues. Scenes that should have carried emotional weight drifted by without much effect, while other stretches felt unnecessarily long. The story moves in fits and starts, creating a sense of imbalance that becomes distracting.

At times, it felt as if the filmmakers were trying to inflate parts of the narrative to justify the scope of the production, while simultaneously rushing through the elements that should have mattered most. The result is a film that looks big but often felt strangely small.

Visually, the movie is undeniably vibrant. The colours, the sweeping shots of Oz, and the detailed costumes all work together to create a striking world. However, the reliance on visual spectacle begins to feel like a substitute for depth. The CGI and grand sets are impressive on the surface, but they do little to strengthen the emotional core of the story.

Watching Wicked: For Good in 3D did not help. The added dimension created flashier images, but it did not make the film more immersive or meaningful. It became another layer of gloss over a story that already felt like it was struggling to breathe.

The casting of Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible stood out for the wrong reasons. Yeoh is an extraordinary actress with a long list of impressive performances, but she felt miscast here. Morrible is a character who relies heavily on theatrical energy and a commanding musical presence.

Without that vocal strength and larger performance style, the character felt subdued and disconnected from the tone of the rest of the film. In a musical, singing is not optional. It is part of the narrative language, and when a major character cannot fully participate in that language, the imbalance becomes obvious.

The ending also left me dissatisfied. After so much setup, the final act rushed through essential emotional beats and narrative resolutions. The relationship between Glinda and Elphaba felt particularly shortchanged. Their connection is meant to be the heart of the story, but the rushed pacing made their final moments feel more perfunctory than heartfelt. It was a conclusion that aimed for emotional impact but never gave itself enough time to earn it.

All of this was intensified by the enormous amount of hype surrounding the film. The Cynthia Erivo memes, the endless promotional clips, and even the uncomfortable discourse about how emaciated some of the cast appeared in marketing materials created expectations that the final product could not meet.

The promotion promised a cultural event. What I got instead was a visually attractive but emotionally uneven film that never quite found its purpose.