Count me among the disappointed. I wanted to love it, and the first 10 minutes gave me hope, since it begns in medias res. Yet. This take will infuriate those who were enchanted, yet ... from strictly a craft standpoint, it must be noted that an efficient hour second act on Broadway has been expanded to 2 hours 17 minutes, and the resulting padding (a wedding, origin story flashbacks, 2 new but unmemorable songs, one with almost indecipherable lyrics) leaves the audience comparing the plotting unfavorably to its masterfully executed predecessor.
The biggest problem: the storytellers don't know what to do with its ostensible protagonist, Elphaba, once gravity has been defied. Though she certainly flies a lot, and with Marvel-like velocity - she ping-pongs back and forth to and from the Wizard and Emerald City too often ("Wonderful" just isn't, and to me still makes no plot sense, aside from removing suspense: why is she in the room with this man?) She is stalled, bearing guilt for the flying monkeys, coveting Glinda's fiance, and spiraling downward. She has nowhere to go but off the canvas, sacrificially, and that martyr's journey is a downer even though Grande makes Glinda's parallel ascension human-scaled.
Had the two halves been tethered in a single 3 hour film, we wouldn't notice - it would barrel forward - and an iconic duet to pulls the threads together does wonders. But waiting a year to watch Elphaba lose agency takes the wind out of the root-for in the narrative, and the busy, attenuated film can't compensate. Sorry, the umbrella story of the musical feels lopsided - the first film is an entertaining tale with a potent piece of messaging; its sequel drives the anti-fascist theme hard but too often forgets to move us. We sometimes care more for those poor animals than these humans, locked in a repetitive struggle. All that said, Grande - "Girl in the Bubble" aside - shines here.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 12/15/25 at 01:54 PM