Typically, two-part movies are the opposite of the Beach Boys’ discography: better in the back half. The first parts of multi-installment movies shot back-to-back, like The Deathly Hallows or Breaking Dawn, mostly tread water to ensure all the narrative chess pieces are in place for the grand finale. Meanwhile, the part twos tend to feature all the fun “You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness monster?” and “Not my daughter, you bitch!” moments. Studio executives win with movies split in half, but audiences typically lose.

The Wicked film adaptation is a rare departure from that norm. It wasn’t just a terrific movie musical; it excelled as a standalone exercise. Adapting only the show’s first act ensured the Jon M. Chu directorial effort functioned as a mighty satisfying coming-of-age story. “Defying Gravity” gloriously concluded Elphaba’s (Cynthia Erivo) growth from her hopeful, naive “Wizard & I” self to a truth-embracing rebel with a sonic flipping of the bird to Oz. One could easily imagine the proper Wizard of Oz story starting shortly after the credits began rolling.

Unfortunately, that put the duology capper, Wicked: For Good, in trouble. The problems of the musical Wicked’s second act have unfortunately followed it to the silver screen. But wait! There’s more, in the form of new challenges exclusive to this adaptation.

Picking up five years after Elphaba burst into her “Let It Go” moment high above Oz, Wicked: For Good begins with this green-skinned pariah firmly entrenched as the magical realm’s boogeyman. Meanwhile, Glinda (Ariana Grande) is now the glistening face of the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) regime, complete with mechanical doo-dads to compensate for her lack of magic.

“Defying Gravity” suggested, wherever Elphaba went next, she’d go there guns a-blazing. That makes the film’s very slow first act extra puzzling and incongruous. She still yearns to fight for Oz, especially the rights of ostracized talking animals. In practice, though, she she largely just spins in circles. While waiting for mid-movie plot mechanics involving the original Wizard of Oz story to happen, she and other Wicked denizens rehash familiar plot and character beats. Worse, the zippy showmanship of “Popular” and “Dancing Through Life” has been replaced by a barrage of interchangeable somber ditties. Everyone being varying degrees of miserable isn’t more engaging.

Wicked: For Good is meant to be the consistently darker flipside to the first’s youthful optimism, charting hope curdling into grim reality. However, only a handful of scenes, such as Glinda mournfully singing introspective sections of “I Couldn’t Be Happier,” capture this with any level of vividness. More often, audiences get characters like Boq (Ethan Slater) and Nessarose (Marrisa Bode) blandly stating their feelings aloud.  Futurama’s Robot Devil would not approve.

Despite this, there’s irony-free theater-kid energy driving this whole enterprise that keeps Wicked: For Good plenty amiable, even at its lowest and slowest. Elphaba and Fiyero’s (Jonathan Bailey) big love scene, for instance, has floating platforms and gradual disrobing executed without a single moment of Ryan Reynolds-style snark. That quality really comes alive in the story’s second half, when Dorothy Gale drops in from Kansas to begin a journey some of you might remember. Here, Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox’s screenplay finally sparks to life.  

Characters cease twiddling their thumbs and rehashing old revelations. Suddenly, there are goals to achieve, lives to save, and vengeance to exact. The melodrama gets grander in execution, as well. For instance, there’s the delightfully outsized scene in which Glinda and Elphaba duel hand-to-hand in Munchkinland. The slapping-and-cackling-laced tête-à-tête is easily a high point of the whole enterprise.

Subsequent musical number “No Good Deed” has just the kind of theatrical editing, bombastic imagery, and outstanding vocals from Erivo’s truly heavenly voice that I watch musical movies for. This jolt in energy carries the production through to the very end, including through the inevitably deeply moving “For Good” performance. Chu and cinematographer Alice Brooks’ sometimes frustratingly stiff camerawork can’t dilute the tune’s tremendous vocals and pathos.

While not everything in this exercise measures up to the first movie, Wicked: For Good’s ravishing production, makeup, and costumes never waver in their exemplary craftsmanship. Pail Tazwell’s inspired designs are especially glorious. From Elphaba’s tattered black outfit to Glinda’s various new extravagant dresses, the attire here would make the costume designers of any classic MGM musical proud. Tazwell’s imaginative concoctions lean fully into the stylized possibilities of innately heightened musical storytelling. Flourishes like these liven up even the slowest sequences.

Ditto Grande’s tremendous performance as a more emotionally complex Glinda. On paper, this white woman’s obliviousness could’ve read as annoyingly naive. In execution, Grande achingly portrays Glinda as an emotionally stunted adult woman, tragically reliant on facades and public approval to feel joy. She’s so heartbreaking in her physicality and facial expressions, especially in the feature’s latter half. With her sublime turn, tangible humanity permeates that famous bubble.

She and Erivo are giving it their all in a frustrating movie too often lethargic for its own good. Considering Powell & Pressburger could make a woman standing in front of a window in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp visually gorgeous, it’s not like slow has to equal boring. The problem is the execution of that slowness. Going around in circles that offer no further insight leaves one yearning for more fun material. Hinging multiple scenes on expressionless, realistic CG animals also speaks to how fidelity to “reality” often hampers Wicked: For Good. Goodness knows the slower musical numbers would’ve benefited from something like the glorious backdrops seen in Singin’ in the Rain’s dream ballet. Alas, the camera and viewers remain stuck in static concrete domains.

There’s plenty that works, especially with the magnificent lead performances and costumes/sets. Stephen Schwartz’s classic tunes like “Wonderful” still crackle with imaginative lyricism. These elements dazzled my (not-so-inner) theater kid. However, the film geek in me couldn’t ignore how Chu’s cinematic vision too often lacks verve. There’s simply nothing in Wicked: For Good that matches Wicked, especially its “Defying Gravity” high point.

Wicked: For Good is currently dominating theatres with flying monkey-like ferocity.

Wicked: For Good Trailer: