Grande shines but ‘Wicked: For Good’ unable to defy gravity

As it turns out, “Wicked” is not too big to fail. In fact, it may be all the excess baggage that weighs down the second installment, making it impossible for the sequel “Wicked: For Good” to defy gravity.

Though the first part “Wicked” did take its sweet time to achieve liftoff, while building out a world that came from over a century of storytelling (plus revising and revisiting), starting with Frank L. Baum’s 1900 fantasy novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the 1939 film adaptation “The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland, Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” and the Tony-winning blockbuster Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman adapted from that.

With “Wicked: For Good,” directed by Jon M. Chu, written by Holzman and Dana Fox, not only do we have to make our way through those many layers of reference, we have to bushwhack through the cultural overgrowth that was the marketing and publicity blitz for “Wicked” — the merch, the memes featuring stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, co-star Jonathan Bailey’s newly designated status as People’s Sexiest Man Alive, the much-documented friendship between Grande and co-star Bowen Yang, etc., etc.

All of that extracurricular material hangs around “Wicked: For Good” like overgrown vines to beat back before we even get to the layers of artifice of the filmmaking — the elaborate production and costume design, makeup, CGI-enhanced sets, talking animals, bursting into song. Instead of transporting us to another world, all this artifice is more distracting than anything else.

Then there are the bold swings (shocking character design) and uneven performances (Michelle Yeoh’s miscasting as Madame Morrible is never more obvious) that make “For Good” an unwieldy blimp of a movie. Thank goodness that Grande’s performance as Glinda pulls it back from the brink of Hindenburg-level disaster.

If “Wicked” belonged to Elphaba (Erivo), “For Good” is decidedly Glinda’s picture. This is her moment to grow: in her beliefs, in her own power, and in her relationship to herself and to her friend Elphaba. Their culminating duet, “For Good,” celebrating their friendship, is this movie’s climatic tune akin to “Defying Gravity,” but the lessons and emotional weight of the song belong to Glinda (and not just because she’s been considering a trademark on the word “good”). She is the one who has been radically changed by knowing Elphaba, and her understanding of what “good” means, what it looks like in action.

Elphaba’s rebellion has resulted in her being painted as a “wicked witch,” after defying gravity — and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). The architect of the propaganda campaign, seen in banners and posters splashed across Oz and Munchkinland, is Madame Morrible, who knows that “good” — represented by Glinda, in her pink bubble, needs a contrasting foil to exist, which is in this case, “wicked” Elphaba, who fights for the rights of the talking animals that have been banished under the Wizard’s tyranny.

Here’s where the authoritarian allegories in “Wicked: For Good” go all mushy. Elphaba, who once idolized the Wizard, was disillusioned when she realized he couldn’t read the magical book the Grimmerie, and that his powers were all smoke, mirrors and oppression. Her outrage stems from the injustice toward the talking animals with whom she feels a kinship, having been bullied for her green skin, and her love for her teacher Dr. Dillamund (a goat). But Elphaba and Glinda’s motivations only feel real when it comes to each other, everything else is just extraneous.

The love triangle among Glinda, Elphaba and the dashing Fiyero (Bailey) doesn’t feel as legible as the friendship betrayal between the two women. For better or for worse, neither actress has as much intense chemistry with Bailey as they do with each other, so an elaborate wedding and tree-bound love scene just come off as awkward and silly more than anything else.

Tribune News Service