Much like Wicked, Wicked: For Good works its way up to a massive duet between the pair, so emotionally resonant than even the most wicked of audience members will still likely shed a tear (the song is, of course, “For Good”). It’s an unmitigated high note, but it’s a lonely one indeed. Is it alone worth the wait? Maybe, why couldn’t the entire film feel that way?
The crime-fighting? That’s nice, but the real fun is in the bonding, most of it at the hand of oddly wholesome sequences in which they all try to one-up each other’s magical skills.
Tucked into the melodrama of Regretting You, there is a sweet story about a mother and daughter trying to figure things out, but the reliance on their outside romances often detracts from it. That’s a shame.
It might seem a bit showy and cheesy in its final moments, but that kind of over-the-top shock is missing from most of the rest of the film. It’s a thriller missing the thrills, and we’ll take them where we can get them.
Vaughn pours himself into the role, but he also seems to understand that going big and broad for this one is a misstep. Easy isn’t a caricature, even if the people and events around him increasingly feel that way.
Hedda’s magnetism is undeniable, and that people would be under her thrall is understandable. DaCosta and a talented team of craftspeople bolster that idea at every turn.
