Too long, too busy and trying too hard – but the Wicked sequel will thrill fans

2 weeks ago 3

FILM
Wicked: For Good ★★★½
(PG) 137 minutes

We left Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba at the end of Wicked part one shortly after she had unmasked Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard of Oz as a dictatorial fraud. In retaliation, she was branded a wicked witch and forced to flee to Oz’s western reaches, while her friend Glinda (Ariana Grande) stayed on, having failed to persuade Elphaba to make peace with the old tyrant.

When we catch up with them again, Elphaba is still plotting his downfall. From her forest hideout, she is zooming around on her enchanted broomstick, making lightning raids on a variety of targets.

Glinda, on the other hand, has just taken delivery of a new form of personal transport – a magic bubble in which she floats about the kingdom in her role as official cheerer-upper. At the suggestion of the Machiavellian Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), the Wizard’s propaganda expert, she has even talked a reluctant Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) into becoming engaged to her.

I was already convinced by director Jon M. Chu’s decision to expand the stage show by spreading its narrative across two feature films. In the first one, the story flowed more evenly, its didactic stretches and abrupt changes in mood were smoothed out and all the characters on its cluttered cast list given their due.

The setting, too, was impressive. Chu’s designers had come up with an extravagant, candy-coloured world saved from mere prettiness by witty touches of self-parody. And Grande struck a similar note, infusing Glinda’s conceits with a wide-eyed overlay of screwball comedy.

Part two carries on in the same vein, although familiarity has dulled the sense of wonder. You also need to do some homework to cope with the plot’s convolutions. As always, there’s a lot going on.

Let’s start with the earnest stuff. In part one, the Wizard took away the rights of Oz’s animals by robbing them of the ability to speak, and things have only become worse.

Love begins to bloom between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) in the sequel.

The nascent rivalry between Elphaba and Glinda over Fiyero’s affections is also speeding towards a resolution. Fiyero doesn’t want to marry Glinda because Elphaba has not only given him a taste for thinking, she’s made him reconsider his ideas about beauty. In his newly enlightened eyes, a green face now seems extremely lovable.

It’s a bewildering situation for Glinda, who has to set aside her jealousy and find a generosity she didn’t know she possessed if she really wants to retain her friendship with Elphaba while, at the same time, realising her dearest wish – to be adored by all as Glinda the Good.

Less entertaining are the twists that bring us to the stage where this revisionist version of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz acknowledges its origins.

In this instalment, Baum’s heroine, Dorothy, makes a brief but climactic appearance in the Emerald City, but the episode is inserted so awkwardly into the action that it’s confusing. It’s as if the script is nodding in the direction of the book that gave birth to the whole saga just because Chu feels obliged to make the gesture.

And although the twists and intersecting subplots need time to play out, the film feels much too long – and too busy. Everybody is trying a bit too hard. No doubt the fans will thrill to the music all over again, but the impact is lost when every song seems to be straining to be a showstopper.

Wicked: For Good is in cinemas from Thursday

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