The conclusion to the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda (Ariana Grande) the Good. Wicked’s conclusion focuses on the friendship that has changed both protagonists for good. 

After the excitement and anticipation for the first movie was rewarded with a superb musical extravaganza I surprisingly found my anticipation for this concluding part wane as time elapsed. So much so that my family and I only went to the cinema to see this one on its second weekend of release! So I am thankful to report that the conclusion is as accomplished a movie as the original although unsurprisingly is still the weaker half. The result is that my review may sound rather downbeat to begin as I capture the reasons why but I promise to try and finish on a high note. 

Let us begin with the songs. The Wicked musical has all of the best songs in the first half. And that rings true here. So much so that they have written two brand new songs for this film and tweaked the arrangements of others in order to try and add some pizzazz. The result is fine but there is nothing here to challenge the likes of “Popular” or “Defying Gravity” from the first movie. 

Next, we have the issue that as the story merges closer together with the Wizard of Oz I always struggle with the fact that not enough time really elapses for the idea of The Wicked Witch of the West and the East to really ferment. Nor does the relationship of Dorothy to her friends on the Yellow Brick Road ring true. So what you have to do is think of The Wizard of Oz as a propaganda film commissioned by the wizard (which makes little sense given where the plot goes) to try and make it work. The ideas are clever but they happen too quickly to feel real (is it silly to question that in a story about Oz?) 

And finally there feels like an awful lot of additional material here to try and flesh out both the running time and the above discrepancies. All in all the two films run just shy of five hours with this feature being the shorter. I suspect that the result will be far more viewings of the first film than the second as time goes on. 

But with those quandaries aside it is still a lot of fun. 

Ariana Grande, my star of the show in the first film continues to deliver here. Her new song helps her give some genuine deeper insight into her perpetually happy Glinda and she is able to give all of her scenes a genuine sense of fun and drama. 

Jeff Goldblum gets to deliver one of the films highlights with a song featuring his wizard and both Elphaba and Glinda. Before of course reverting to his grifter fraud of a wizard. 

And the absolute highlight is a girl fight between the two leads that delivers a laugh out loud reference to The Wizard of Oz. 

It is lots of fun and anyone who found enjoyment in the original will find it here too.