{"id":293657,"date":"2025-11-18T23:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/293657\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T23:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T23:56:12","slug":"wicked-for-good-reviews-dont-defy-gravity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/293657\/","title":{"rendered":"“Wicked: For Good” Reviews Don’t Defy Gravity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Unviersal Pictures<\/p>\n

A year ago, Universal Pictures\u2019 \u201cWicked\u201d was everywhere \u2013 the film ran an intense and expensive global marketing campaign designed for maximum populist appeal.<\/p>\n

From its legendary junket interviews with \u2018holding space\u2019 and naughty jokes galore from whichever genius paired Jonathan Bailey with Jeff Goldblum, to huge premieres and marketing tie-ins blending green and pink colour schemes \u2013 you couldn\u2019t escape it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s less so the case with \u201cWicked: For Good,\u201d the film which adapts the back half, and widely agreed upon weaker half, of the stage musical. Marketing has been much less ubiquitous this time and is going for more prestige, possibly trying to chase the awards glory that evaded it last time. Not a bad bet, as a decidedly weaker line-up of films in contention this year means it has a shot.<\/p>\n

Reviews for the new film are now in though and paint the picture that may not be the awards juggernaut Universal had hoped for. With 90 reviews counted, \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d sits at 74% in Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> \u2013 a large drop from the 88% of the first.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a similar story on Metacritic<\/a> where it landed a decidedly mixed 61\/100, a bit of a drop from the pretty good 73\/100 of the first. There\u2019s still plenty of praise for the performances, particularly its two female leads, and the core emotional relationship of the two men which is the overall story\u2019s beating heart.<\/p>\n

But the overall film seems less well-received this time from the songs to the runtime to the maximalist approach, several of the reviews questioning the choice to split the film now in a way they weren\u2019t with the first one. Here\u2019s a sampling of reviews:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things that missed the mark the first time, well, they still do. The things that worked in \u201cWicked\u201d? They still do, but only a clock-tick better.\u201d \u2013 Kate Erbland, Indiewire<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe film fixes a common complaint of the show, giving the pair more scenes (and songs) together in this final stretch, which now feels like a robust tale unto itself.\u201d \u2013 Peter DeBruge, Variety<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve only gone and done it. The makers of this musical sequel have delivered a film that surpasses last year\u2019s box-office smash in verve, ambition and emotional ache.\u201d \u2013 Kevin Maher, The Times<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWicked: For Good sticks the landing as best as it can. When Erivo and Grande are finally together, it does leave \u201ca handprint on your heart\u201d even if everything leading up to it is just drawing that out.\u201d \u2013 Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNo 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.\u201d \u2013 Sandra Hall, The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes it so frustrating is that director Jon M Chu is an established musicals master; his In the Heights is a modern classic of the form. But the corporate stretch-it-out-and-wring-it-dry approach here has been deadening.\u201d \u2013 Robbie Collin, The Daily Telegraph<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFor Good has little sense of movement, literally or emotionally \u2013 no profound revelations, no wonder or spectacle. All that\u2019s to be done now is for each character to process, via standardised ballad, what they\u2019ve learned.\u201d \u2013 Clarisse Loughrey, Independent<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYet the sensation of a work that, in translation from one medium to another, no longer defies gravity but sort of roughly plummets back down to terra firma can\u2019t easily be shaken off.\u201d \u2013 David Fear, Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a pre-planned \u2018Part Two\u2019 this disappointing since the second half of Andy Muschietti\u2019s \u2018It.\u2019 At least nobody projectile vomits on Jeff Goldblum to the tune of \u2018Angel of the Morning.’\u201d \u2013 William Bibbiani, The Wrap<\/a><\/p>\n

Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum, Marissa Bode, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang, and Colman Domingo star in \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d which opens in cinemas Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unviersal Pictures A year ago, Universal Pictures\u2019 \u201cWicked\u201d was everywhere \u2013 the film ran an intense and expensive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,142132,134],"class_list":["post-293657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bigslider","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}