At the end of Wicked, Cynthia Erivo’s soaring performance of “Defying Gravity” sent audiences out of the theater on a high. The stage version did the same nearly twenty years ago. But in 2025, when director Jon M. Chu and his team return with Wicked: For Good, they are not just revisiting a Broadway hit. They are reworking what it means to be good and evil.
The new chapter follows Elphaba, the “Wicked Witch,” and Glinda, her gleaming opposite. Through brilliant staging and heavy symbolism, the second film presses the idea that the once “evil” Elphaba is in truth misunderstood, and that “goodness” may only be propaganda. Glinda now serves the Wizard’s regime, a government that restricts borders and cages animals to reflect a troubled America. Erivo even sings that “Oz is more than just a place. It’s a promise, an idea.” The message could not be plainer.
It’s a story begging to be called moral rebellion—but what kind? When evil becomes virtue and virtue becomes a marketing slogan, what lessons are children and audiences supposed to take away? As the film paints Oz’s dictator as a populist and calls his rule an allegory for modern American politics, the creative team seems less interested in entertaining viewers than in rewriting right and wrong.
Yet what does this allegory teach? We are told that “somebody has to be wicked so Glinda can be good.” It’s an idea that may sound profound but reveals a troubling logic, one that excuses corruption as performance and portrays rebellion itself as the only form of truth. L. Frank Baum’s classic story warned against deception and celebrated courage and kindness. The new version often feels like a lecture on power disguised as a musical.
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Even the visual spectacle cannot hide the collapse of pacing. The songs are fewer, the energy flatter, and the moral clarity almost nonexistent. The great Michelle Yeoh, playing Madame Morrible, is left stranded with a script that mistakes cynicism for insight. In the end, the story about a woman who once terrified Kansas farmers now recasts her as a folk hero railing against social injustice. Was anyone really asking for a political awakening in Oz?
Wicked: For Good goes out of its way to give every character a backstory. The Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Cowardly Lion receive earnest psychology profiles that drain the mystery and humor from the tale. Do we really need to know why the Tin Man rusted or what made the Lion lose his nerve? This is not revelation—it’s repetition. Moral inversion and character therapy replace good storytelling.
The idea seems to be that modern audiences can no longer accept simple moral truths. They must sympathize with everyone, even the wicked. But that emotional confusion leaves viewers without an anchor. Once, Dorothy represented innocence facing evil. Now, we are told she may have accidentally slain the wrong woman.
If the studio had left Wicked as one complete story, it might have preserved its structure and meaning. Instead, financial strategy split it into two films, stretching the substance thinner than Emerald City’s candy coated dross. The result is a reminder: when art tries to replace morality with politics, the payoff is rarely what the audience was promised.
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English (US) · 