The first shot is one of the strongest in the entire film: It shows the construction of the iconic Yellow Brick Road, which runs right through Oz. However, there is nothing fairytale-like about these works. Instead of the happily whistling miner dwarves in “Snow White,” one immediately thinks of the inhumane construction of the American railroad – including indigenous slave labor. After the plot of “The Wizard of Oz” still swayed from a safe distance in the background in “Wicked”, the story of the duped witch hunter Dorothy gets its fat much more aggressive in “Wicked: Part 2”. But the allusions to Lyman Frank Baum's classic children's book and its legendary film adaptation from 1939 are by no means the only thing that is darker in “Wicked: Part 2”.
After the film adaptation of the global musical mega-hit, which had been planned since 2010, did not really get off the ground for more than a decade, the newly appointed director Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich”) insisted from the start that the Broadway spectacle should be filmed in two parts. This central decision not only gave him more time to tell the story without squeezing or cutting, it also had the side effect of being able to attract an audience that was not familiar with the Broadway original with the maximally euphoric (magical high school) musical “Wicked” before things really got down to business thematically in the second half. True to the motto of another legendary movie musical: “A spoonful of sugar sweetens your medicine.”
Glinda (Ariana Grande) tries to take pinpricks against the magician's fascist system wherever she can. But she's fighting a losing battle all alone.
After Glinda (Ariana Grande) failed to fly away with Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) in the “Defying Gravity” finale of “Wicked,” the once best friends find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict: While Elphaba, branded the “Wicked Witch of the West,” lives alone in the forest and repeatedly carries out attacks on the wizard's (Jeff Goldblum) army and infrastructure, Glinda becomes the pink propaganda machine of the manipulative Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh).
Glinda, who slowly realizes that she may be on the wrong side, makes one last attempt at reconciliation. But even this is doomed from the start due to the magician's cunning: Instead, a very special quartet – consisting of a young girl from Kansas, a scarecrow, a tin man and a cowardly lion – is sent to attack the Wicked Witch of the West…
(Too) many explanations – but also what matters!
Nothing here is nearly as bad as the scene in Solo: A Star Wars Story where we learn the “true” story behind Han Solo’s last name. But in this concentrated form, the “Wizard of Oz” revelations sometimes seem like a dutiful processing: Not only the more or less surprising origin stories of the lion, the tin man and the scarecrow are added later. In addition to other questions that we honestly never asked ourselves when reading or watching the original, the origin of the whirlwind and the origin of the red, glittering patent leather shoes (a pair of which once sold for $660,000 at a props auction) are also clarified.
But apart from that, Jon M. Chu understood very well why the first part brought more than three quarters of a billion dollars into the box office at the global box office: After the euphoric reactions including ten Oscar nominations that “Wicked” and its meme machine press tour earned, the focus in “Wicked: Part 2” is even more on the relationship between Glinda and Elphaba. Not only do the two have more scenes together than in the stage version, many of the rather flat (witch) jokes were also deleted in order to create even more deeper character moments – and in this respect, “Wicked: Part 2” is a complete success, especially thanks to the still incredibly strong chemistry between Ariana Grande (“Don't Look Up”) and Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”).
The main thing is pink: Glinda (Ariana Grande) lets herself be used as the magician's pink propaganda princess – a little too happily at first.
The animals that have not yet been locked in cages emigrate through underground tunnels in the Yellow Brick Street, the Munchkins are no longer allowed to leave their homeland without special permission – and posters pop up everywhere whose aesthetics are immediately reminiscent of the propaganda of the Third Reich. But despite the (oppressive) mood, “Wicked: Part 2” is also damn entertaining for long stretches: When Glinda enters her flying machine, around which she can create a pink bubble by pressing her foot, it is not only a visually appealing running gag, but can also be understood as a biting comment on her being trapped in a “bubble”.
In any case, after her mainly humorous role in the first part, Ariana Grande will be challenged much more this time: after all, this time it is Glinda who has to catch up (and draw conclusions) with all the developments that Elphaba has already put behind her in “Wicked” in an often painful way. This only makes it even clearer how shamelessly film productions sometimes cheat in order to increase their chances at the Oscars: It was already questionable when Ariana Grande started the awards season as a “supporting actress” in the first film – but with “Wicked: Part 2”, which is primarily about the maturation of her character, this attribution finally seems ridiculous.
Conclusion: It was always clear that “Wicked: Part 2” would never reach the euphoric heights of its predecessor, given its much darker, more serious mood. But as an anti-fascist musical experience, the second half also impresses with fantastic performances and another outstandingly harmonious leading actress duo. Only the subsequent explanations for everything and everyone in “The Wizard of Oz” certainly remain a matter of taste.