It’s Wicked all right – and in a good way, too.

Films by Graham Young

WICKED: FOR GOOD (PG, 137 mins) ***

The second half of the adapted Wicked musical story will meet many of the targets that excited fans will have set for it after part one secured ten Oscar nominations including best picture.

Although it ‘only' won two of those prizes – for the production values and costumes – both of those key aspects remain outstanding and this second half features more brilliant performances by the two lead actresses.

Cynthia Erivo, nominated for best actress as the green-skinned Elphaba, and Ariana Grande (a best supporting actress contender as Glinda) again give it their all in highly demanding physical roles as well as during their stellar performances of Stephen Schwartz’s songs.

Perhaps they will both be nominated for a second time early in the new year.

With IMAX screens further enriching the magical elements, Wicked: For Good, then, ticks a lot of top quality boxes.

In the first movie, despite their differences, Elphaba and Glinda became at Shiz University friends in the Land of Oz.

But meeting the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (still a very ‘Goldblum’ Jeff Goldblum in part two) looked set to change everything and send Elphaba on a different path to ‘Glinda the Good’.

In the second part of this weighty reimagining of The Wizard of Oz as seen from the witches’ perspectives, the ostracised Elphaba is now seen as The Wicked With of the West. Can she get her own back on The Wizard?

Director Jon M Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, 2018) notably missed out on an Oscar nomination last year and is likely to follow suit here. That’s because after the belated energy and drive of the final act of part one, Wicked: For Good gets bogged down with too much story over-complicating matters.

But what can you expect when Judy Garland’s film The Wizard of Oz was adapted from a 1900 novel by L Frank Baum and that the Wicked films are adapted from the stage musical that was inspired by Gregory Maguire’s own 1995 novel reimagining of Baum’s work?

Songs ‘Wonderful’ and ‘For Good’ are the pick of part two, but these musical highlights are too far apart and no match for ‘Defying Gravity’ in the 160-minute part one.

I did love the opening scenes with the clever machine quickly laying the block paving for the Yellow Brick Road, though – goodness knows how many councils could do with one of those!

Considering The Wizard of Oz (1939) ran to just over an hour and 40 minutes, the combined five-hour running time of the two Wicked films feels like overkill for not other reason than Universal wants to try to match The Lord of the Rings etc.

Universal could do worse than to try to whittle both parts down into a single 110-minute film aimed more at children for Christmases into eternity.

Toning down the witches’ slaps wouldn’t be a bad thing, either as they are very borderline for a PG-rated musical fantasy.

SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE (15, 89 mins) ***

After the 2022 film Sisu (meaning extraordinary determination to overcome unsurmountable odds), we get a second dose of highly-inventive, heavy-duty violence that would have merited an 18-certificate back in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s heyday and surely made the likes of Buster Keaton even bigger stars of the silent movie era!

In the first film set towards the end of WWII, prospector Aatami (Jorma Tommila) sought relentless revenge on Nazi gold thieves in northern Finland.

In this new gory-slapstick thriller set just after the Second World War, writer-director Jelmari Helander sends the Finnish ex-soldier back into his now Soviet-occupied former homeland to collect the wood of his old house where his family was murdered.

Taking it back towards the border, he’s relentlessly pursued in linear fashion by freed Soviet Army commander Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang).

There are two composers listed and the darker, edgier themes which work best given that there is precious little dialogue. Indeed, in a brave move, no words are spoken by the central character toughing it out against a man of similar age when they are both old enough to be retired and playing bowls.

Shot in Estonia and not found lacking for gristly humour, Road To Revenge can be seen to have been inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road (2014). If there’s one new film that Ukrainian resistance soldiers might want to gain inspiration from over again in the near future it would be this one.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS (15, 104 mins) *

Benedict Cumberbatch, left with two children following the death of his wife, begins to see a giant crow in his home – perhaps inspired by his illustrator father’s work.

Adapted from Max Porter’s book, Dylan Southern’s film tries to offer an admirable study of grief – a rich subject matter never explored enough.

But its shallow, repetitive nature and journey into jump-scare horror territory sends it all completely haywire compared with the likes of Truly Madly Deeply (1990), hence it’s showing at Vue Star City only.

Director Scott Hicks and actor Clive Owen covered male grief in a superior way with The Boys Are Back (2009).

Reviewing films in Birmingham since 1989, Graham Young is a former UK Regional Film Journalist of the Year

CREDITS

Wicked: For Good / Universal

Sisu: Road to Revenge / Sony Pictures Releasing

The Thing With Feathers / Vue Lumiere