Wicked part 2: when Hollywood finds its magic (review)

The sequel to the adaptation of the musical stands out (for now) as THE best blockbuster of the year.

With a few exceptions (Lilo & Stitch, Minecraft…), and while waiting for the next Avatar, 2025 was quite a complicated year for American blockbusters. And if the best remedy for super hero tired and the remake overdose was the good old musical?

The first part of Wickedreleased twelve months ago, had already given us the beginnings of an answer. The adaptation of the famous Broadway musical, inspired by Wizard of Ozhad conquered the public (especially American but also worldwide), with its super duo of actresses (Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo) and its unstoppable hits (“Defying Gravity” has not left our heads). But it was still necessary to transform the test with the sequel.

Filmed at the same time as the first film, Wicked: Part 2 (Wicked: For Good in VO) picks up the plot where we left off. After discovering the magician’s deception, Elphaba (Erivo) became the “Wicked Witch of the West”, while Good Glinda is adored by the people of Oz. Morrible’s (Michelle Yeoh) propaganda is in full swing, but Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), promoted to captain of the guard, still doubts Elphaba’s guilt…

Director Jon M. Chu uses the same ingredients, and the result perhaps works even better on our palate now acclimated to this very American recipe. Wicked: Part 2 is a pure spectacle, a master class in production and musical scenes, a great film about friendship, love and tolerance, but also entertainment that does not fail to tell something.

It’s difficult, in fact, not to have a parable of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policy in the arc of the animals, ostracized and chased out of Oz by the Magician. Jeff Goldblum (always such an idiot) even sings an ode to fake news, where he proudly proclaims that “truth is an opinion“, for those who don’t understand.

But where part 2 surpasses part 1, it is first of all in its rhythm and its conciseness (23 minutes less on the clock, that’s not nothing). A tradition rightly inherited from Broadway, where act 2 is generally shorter, to spare the performers and the spectators.

We must then applaud the incorporation of Wizard of Oz (the 1939 film, not the character) in the story. After their brief appearance in the first part, Dorothy and her gang return as a common theme. And Wicked becomes at the same time the origin story of the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man, and a Rashomon surprising and rich in revelations, which we will be careful not to spoil for you here…

Rest assured, Wicked does not, however, seek to sell us a new cinematographic universe. Jon M. Chu offers us a real resolution, magnifying the alchemy between Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo (who is not just a trend on social networks). Old-fashioned entertainment, which proves that the love story between Broadway and Hollywood, which began almost a century ago, still has a bright future ahead of it.