Film Review - Wicked for Good (2025)

Wicked for Good is the follow on to 2024’s Wicked based off of the Broadway musical and again sees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo return as Glinda and Elphaba respectively, the story here sees Elphaba determined to prove to the people of Oz that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is a fraud but Ozians have become afraid of the Wicked Witch and Glinda must decide whether to fight her friend or try and save her.

I was so keen for this movie for much of this year (only Avatar Fire and Ash I had anticipated more) because I was so thoroughly charmed by the first movie, it had good songs, it had a good visual feel and it had those wonderful wonderful performances by Grande and Erivo at its core and I had really hoped that Wicked For Good would be a Dune Part Two situation where part one was great but part two was something special.

Sadly however that did not happen this time as this movie is nowhere near as fun or as charming as the first film and first reason why is the musical numbers, more often than not they brought the film to a halt too many times for my liking, a good musical will let the songs help to drive the story and bring that part of it to a good climax but here it feels like the movie stops so the songs can start and one song in particular wants so much to be like the Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast but it has not one tenth of the Mob Songs punch or impact.

Secondly the storytelling here is a mess and a big reason for this is the attempts to tie this part of the story into the events of the Wizard of Oz movie and those tie ins and call backs and references felt so obvious and predictable that I was reminded of how Madame Web tied into the broader Spider-man universe with equally as obvious and predictable results.

Thirdly the look of Oz here feels so dull and lifeless, now that criticism was there for the first film but I didn’t really buy into it whereas here I did and again I think that is because of those tie ins to the Wizard of Oz which was so groundbreaking for its use of colour in film in 1939 and in contrast Oz has that standard digigrey murkiness that we see too often nowadays.

And lastly the cast feels wasted here, Grande and Erivo are as good as ever but they only really work in this movie when they share scenes together, Jeff Goldblum was an inspired choice to play the Wizard but here his singing is terrible while Michelle Yeoh was okay as Madame Morrible but her singing isn’t great either while Jonathan Bailey is wasted here as the Prince.

And so that was Wicked for Good and talk about a big downgrade from the first movie to the second, I recommended the first film without question last year but this time I cannot and I take no pleasure in saying that one little bit, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - The Running Man (2025)

The Running Man is based off of the Stephen King story and is also the new film by Edgar Wright, the story concerns Ben Richards (Glen Powell) who has been blacklisted from being hired for a job after an incident with his previous employment and needs money to care for his sick daughter so he auditions for a TV show called the Running Man which is produced by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and hosted by Bobby T (Colman Domingo) and Richards has to hide for 30 days from the Network and the Public who win prizes for Dobbing him into the show before he can win the grand prize of a billion dollars and that will not be easy.

I love Edgar Wright as a filmmaker I really do but outside of the Cornetto series he made with Simon Pegg I haven’t loved the movies he’s made and going into Running Man that feeling kept coming back but could Edgar run from that problem or would be the one he can never really escape from.

Well it’s a bit of both as I did have a good time at this movie until its ending but before I go more into that I will go into what does work and first off Wright’s direction is as tight and solid as ever, he’s clearly going for a Paul Verhoeven esque feeling of the future that you saw in his Sci-fi films like Robocop and Starship Troopers and if anyone can replicate that style well enough it is Edgar and he does so pretty well, the editing by Paul Machliss is good as well keeping the pace nice and tight wherever possible while also knowing when to slow things down.

And the cast are pretty good too, Glen Powell makes for an effective leading man and you want to see him succeed in the Running Man game, Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo are a lot of fun as the producer and host behind the show while Katy O’Brian is fun in a small role and Michael Cera reunites with Edgar Wright after working with him on Scott Pilgrim and has a fun if brief role.

But where this film does fall down is its ending because it really feels like it comes right out of nowhere in the worst possible way and I sat there in my seat going “what the fuck” and after that point the film really lost me and I’m someone who will defend the ending of Last Night in Soho because at least I pegged early on in that film that that was kind of coming even if the film crash lands getting to that point but here no such luck as it just derailed the whole experience for me.

And so that was the Running Man and until the ending it’s a good solid time that is far from Edgar Wright’s best, 2 and a half out of 5.