"Yet the smash-hit film's charms were hard to resist, the kind of sumptuous family fare that Hollywood should be serving up more often. I did detect one glaring issue. Presented in the opening title card was a footnote: the words Part One. Uh-oh. Postponing all the necessary wrap-up to a sequel seemed like leaving a pile of dirty dishes in the sink for tomorrow."
"But it does have a lot of narrative cleanup to do, in large part because of the tricky second half of its source material. Act I of the musical fizzily mixes coming-of-age school comedy with darker fantasy drama; the back half struggles to tie its many plot threads together, and is further hampered by a much weaker set of songs."
"Splitting the stage show into two parts thus worked wonders for the first movie. Now for Chu and his screenwriters, Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, the bill has come due. The best I can say about For Good is that its two stars, Cynthia Erivo (as the green-skinned witch Elphaba) and Ariana Grande (her sickeningly sweet friend Glinda), are strong-enough performers to make the most bizarre turns feel functional. But even they can't keep the film from collapsing under the lightest scrutiny."
Jon M. Chu's first Wicked film delivered brassy, sumptuous family entertainment despite some flaws such as consistently overlit outdoor scenes. Labeling the debut Part One required narrative payoff in a sequel. Wicked: For Good faces significant cleanup from a tricky second-act structure and a weaker set of songs, inherited from the source musical and Gregory Maguire's revisionist novel. Splitting the stage show into two films aided the initial movie but left unresolved plot threads to be completed here. Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda give strong performances that make odd tonal shifts functional. Despite those performances, the sequel falters under light scrutiny.
Read at The Atlantic
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