Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Colman Domingo, Peter Dinklage
Genre: Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
Director: Jon M. Chu
In Irish Cinemas: 21st November 2025
Director Jon M. Chu pulls off an impressive feat with this more tightly focused conclusion to his sprawling musical prequel, an Oz-myth reimagining drawn from the celebrated stage production. The film retains the candy-coloured dreamscape and Broadway sparkle of its predecessor, complete with those peculiar, high-minded announcements issued by the city’s elite to Oz’s ever-bustling citizenry, who often feel like NPCs milling about a video-game hub. But this time, the story zeroes in on the central figures and their volatile romantic entanglements, played out through two overlapping love triangles: Glinda, Elphaba, and the Wizard on one side; Glinda, Elphaba, and Prince Fiyero on the other. Both witches pine openly for Fiyero, the dashing young officer, while also harbouring complicated feelings about each other.
Jeff Goldblum is terrific as the Wizard, essentially Oz’s answer to Darth Vader: a charming, slippery showman slowly realising his own sleazy charisma is eating away at whatever remains of his conscience. Jonathan Bailey shifts into a more grounded, fervent Fiyero, shedding his earlier campiness, while Ariana Grande plays Glinda with her usual porcelain fragility, though with fewer opportunities for comic flourishes. But the spotlight is unmistakably on Cynthia Erivo, whose magnetic presence turns Elphaba into something richer, fiercer, yet more raw, with layers of maturity and vulnerability that weren’t as visible before. Marissa Bode returns as Nessarose, Elphaba’s wheelchair-using sister; Ethan Slater appears as Boq, the Munchkin attendant hopelessly tangled in the sisters’ emotional orbit; and Michelle Yeoh lends her poised warmth to Madame Morrible, the Wizard’s impeccably composed adviser.
The first film left audiences wondering how this prequel would eventually run up against the canonical “present” of the 1939 Wizard of Oz. If Elphaba’s supposed wickedness is merely society punishing her otherness, how would the story justify her descent into full villainy? And if Glinda ultimately casts her aside, wouldn’t that make her seem cold or hypocritical? The movie navigates these narrative tightropes with an unexpectedly deft blend of tragedy and humour.
More curious is the brief, almost sideways introduction of Dorothy, who drops into Oz inside her Kansas farmhouse and inadvertently sets the endgame in motion. Her future companions, the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow, each receive small, superhero-style origin beats that echo the way comic-book movies slot in their characters’ formative moments. The Scarecrow’s introduction, however, is something viewers might spot coming: it’s oddly muddled and postponed, and the logic behind his lack of a brain never becomes as clear as the Lion’s missing courage or the Tin Man’s missing heart. It’s a knotty bit of mythology, though perhaps no more confusing than the source film, which also plays fast and loose with the Wizard’s grand proclamations.
Still, the emotional centre belongs to Erivo. The moment when Fiyero must convince Elphaba of the truth, the audience has consistently recognised that she is, in fact, profoundly beautiful, and this landing is remarkable.
Overall: 8/10
Movie Reviewer
