It's time once again for another round of Review Roundup, showcasing my best bits of writing regarding the things I've watched in the last month. This November has been quite interesting, namely with a lot of notable new releases I've seen that have all raised many fascinating ideas. As a result, some of the reviews in this roundup are very long and in-depth, at least compared to the usual standard, so I hope you're sitting comfortably! With that in mind, let's waste no more time and have a look at them!
NEW: The Choral (Nicholas Hytner, 2025) - reviewed 09/11/2025
"A sweet little story about the importance of the arts during the most difficult times and the way new meaning can and ought to be found in certain pieces based on the new contexts in which they are interpreted. The individual characterisation is slightly weak with many members of the ensemble blurring into one another for me, but the sense of community that defines much of the film is nonetheless very solidly conveyed. Some may dismiss this as nothing more than standard Sunday afternoon fare, but to me there’s always a time and a place for these sorts of films. While they may not seek to redefine cinema or boldly challenge their audience, their consistent earnestness in approaching their given topics never fails to charm me. This may not be as effective as something like The Ballad of Wallis Island from earlier this year, but it more than did its job and went down very well with the large audience I saw it with this Remembrance Sunday." 7/10
THROWBACK: Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright, 2021) - reviewed 11/11/2025
Click here to read my original review on this blog from 31/10/2021
"With a new Edgar Wright film on the near horizon, I thought the time was right to revisit something from him, and I ended up going with his previous (and most divisive?) film. I’ve never been completely keen on Last Night in Soho, I can vividly remember my first viewing of it at the cinema, which was very exciting since I considered Wright my favourite director at the time and this was the first film of his that I was there to see during its initial release since I became a fan in my mid-teens, and I while I enjoyed the film a lot, I couldn’t help but feel an absence of what I’d come to love about the director. I’ve watched it on only one subsequent occasion since then, and my thoughts generally stayed the same, considering it a suitably enjoyable watch overall but rather disappointing coming from Edgar Wright. It’s been nearly four years since that last viewing and since then a lot has changed in terms of my knowledge of cinema, so the film was inevitably going to sit somewhat differently with me on revisiting it now (after all, I regard Last Night in Soho quite significantly for being released during my first semester of studying film at university, and I have since graduated). Most notably, I have a newfound admiration for what Wright was going for here in terms of his inspiration, specifically in drawing upon the Italian Giallo. This was an area of film I was only introduced to about a year ago, and on being familiarised with it I can vaguely recall Last Night in Soho being mentioned as a text that takes after Giallo in a modern context, which made sense given how I understood the style / aesthetic combined with my broad memory of the film. Revisiting it, however, it’s blatantly obvious where the inspiration lies, with Wright implementing all the typical outlandish narrative twists and turns and greatly indulging in film artifice amid constructing the film’s visual identity. There’s definitely a lot of Suspiria (which I only watched for the first time recently) in here, having a narrative involving a young woman travelling to study in a daunting new environment where a sinister mystery is slowly unravelled, even down to featuring a similar establishing scene with the protagonist, Eloise, uneasily sat in the back of a taxi. These qualities are things I enjoyed on a basic level beforehand (simply because bold colours are pretty and mystery narratives are engaging) but today I found myself greatly appreciating them as clear points of influence from what is now sadly a generally bygone style. Moreover, what I think is particularly strong about Last Night in Soho on these grounds is how it specifically utilises the implications of the Giallo style in conveying its ideas, rendering it something of a uniquely Neo-Giallo piece. With the film crucially involving a disjunct between present and past that is increasingly blurred, Wright uses the greatly heightened and nightmarish Giallo worldview to define his vision of 1960s London, strikingly so as such is able to function as both a twisted portrait of the given era heavily removed from the present as well as a clear subversion of the idealised, nostalgic understanding that is initially upheld by Eloise. As temporal boundaries begin to blur, the Giallo-infused imagery of the past making its way into the present space helps to articulate the suggestions of everlasting trauma felt by women who have suffered abuse and exploitation alongside the notion that little has changed on that front in London over the years. Essentially, Wright has taken the Giallo and found a way of implementing it so to benefit his overarching thesis, leading to a perhaps richer use of the style than what it was once known for. As much as I love something like Suspiria, its Giallo qualities don’t carry a great deal of nuance, expertly amounting to an eerie dreamlike atmosphere but suggesting little further. This isn’t a problem because, especially in that case, the style is all the necessary substance, but it nonetheless renders Last Night in Soho a clear evolution, a film arising at a time when what made the Giallo so radical and was able to carry its loose narratives is no longer considered groundbreaking and thus it is integrated for a greater purpose. This isn’t to say that the film is perfect in drawing upon Giallo, as there are some missteps that weaken its use of the style. The first and most frustrating would be the heavy reliance on CG artifice instead of more practical alternatives. The relentless swarms of ghostly figures would be the most outstanding example, very clearly digital creations and lacking the degree of grit and heft that can be seen in the artifice of classic Giallo. Going back to Suspiria, there are scenes in that film where characters are attacked by creatures such as dogs and bats, very overtly involving puppets of the respective animals though not to a fault as their particular tangibility delightfully fits the overarching artificial nature of the film. Sure, you can say similar things about these creations, but not only do I find CG artifice far less appealing, it also more often than not doesn’t feel as though it’s done with the intention of seeming artificial, instead usually being merely a byproduct of poor visual effects work, which may have been the case here. It’s a distracting sort of fakery, not a charming one. The same goes elsewhere at times, with some instances of blood splatter or sweeping shots of 1960s London seeming fake in an undesirable, weightless way. You could argue that this is more aligned with the modern cinematic context to which the film belongs, but considering how faithfully it evokes Giallo elsewhere, also being shot on film and featuring plenty of manual / practical effects elsewhere, this does stand out as a weakness. The other issue I would raise is that it does generally feel as though Wright is holding back in ways that filmmakers like Dario Argento never seemed to. There are no throwaway shots in films like Suspiria, almost every frame has the most potential for heightened visual expression completely extracted and put on display, and that relentlessness is a large part of why those films are so entrancing. Here, for every memorable shot there are also several more workmanlike ones that relax the extreme Giallo tendencies, reserving such for particular moments that go all out. I understand that the scenes of the present are supposed to seem less striking than that of the past (at least to begin with), but even within the latter there’s a consistent unevenness regarding making the most of the image as the Giallo is known to do. That said, these can be taken as nitpicks in the long run as I think the film is overall successful as a modern approximation of the Giallo, not necessarily being a product of the aesthetic but undoubtedly using it well to enhance its own meaning. On that basis, it would seem I enjoy Last Night in Soho more as a Giallo text than as an Edgar Wright film. However, this only seems true if what defines Wright is heavily reduced; as an eighteen-year-old, I liked his films primarily for such basic factors as their strong sense of humour combined with his distinctly hyperactive and energetic formalism. He was one of the first filmmakers I understood for having a certain style, which makes sense since that style as I once understood it was very memorable and easy to register. This is why the film had previously never sat completely right with me, as at a glance it seems to be a departure from the Wright I knew and loved. That said, looking to what the director accomplishes on a grander scale reveals that much of what he is highly regarded for remains somewhat intact here. Sure, you don’t get many of Wright’s signature infectious quick cuts and zooms here, but what those techniques can be taken as at large are instances of his films calling attention to themselves and their constructed-ness, and given that Last Night in Soho draws upon Giallo, a style crucially defined by its emphasis on artifice, what we can observe here is Wright finding different means of doing the same thing compared to what we usually expect from him. The colours of the 1960s being considerably more heightened and saturated than the decidedly muted present is an obvious factor, but there’s also the occasional unnaturally long take that signals the subjective perspective about the film, and many stark cuts between the different points in time as the boundaries at hand become less defined. You can even observe this on a more myopic level, such as one instance of a sneaky split diopter (something that definitely would’ve gone over eighteen-year-old me’s head), thus proving how this characteristic of Wright can still be noted even if it’s more downplayed than usual. Although, what I will say as another minor critique here is that this downplaying does in part feel like a missed opportunity; returning to my point about Wright seemingly holding back as director, plenty of classic Giallo films feature frantic cuts and zooms much like the aforementioned ones seen throughout his films, so the relative lack of them and other specific Wright-isms here does seem a little questionable as I don’t think they’d have come across as ill-fitting in this landscape, and they certainly would’ve been fun to see in a non-comedic piece. [...] On a similar note, something else I’ve always loved about Wright is his overtly British approach to certain material, mainly when done for comedic effect. The best examples of this are obviously to be found in the Cornetto Trilogy, which are easily his best films for me, all applying a satirical and distinctly British twist to genres typically associated with mainstream Hollywood, in the process crafting some extremely effective and witty humour. While this film is absolutely not a comedy, you can still observe that same sense of taking something from one national context and applying it to the United Kingdom, in this case the Giallo, which both originated and was popularised in Italy. That doesn’t mean that what the film is getting at isn’t applicable elsewhere, but it clearly makes an attempt to specifically be about what London as a location means for certain groups of women and how this may contradict the way younger generations of British women understand the city and its heritage, and by extension exploring how the past is perceived at large. Once again, this wider trait about Wright’s style can still be observed. To summarise, Last Night in Soho is a far more interesting object than I ever gave it credit for. I’ve always enjoyed its playful horror attributes but I now see what significance they hold beyond being superficially fun, and it has increased my admiration for the film. More importantly, as someone who was once underwhelmed by the seeming lack of the traditional Edgar Wright style here, the new light in which I understand the film has in turn revealed that his place in the director’s seat is more evident and crucial than I previously thought. Wright remains one of my favourite filmmakers to this day, and while this may not showcase what I consider his greatest strengths, its general divergence from his usual output has helped to demonstrate what is to be enjoyed about him and his approach from a broader perspective. Sometimes a viewing like this can change your perception of a figure you once admired for the worse, but I’m glad to say that such was not the case here and that one of the most formative filmmaking figures for me remains someone worth paying attention to." 8/10
NEW: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro, 2025) - reviewed 14/11/2025
"I had minimal anticipation for this, not being particularly amazed by the trailers and even slightly ticked off by the way things looked, but I’m glad to say that despite being a bit uneven it ultimately won me over by the end. As the tale commences with Victor Frankenstein at the centre, many of my initial reservations were realised, namely the pretty poor visuals. Despite the obviously talented Guillermo at the helm, this began as one of the ugliest loads of digital slop I’ve seen all year, every environment feeling weightless and failing to immerse, and the image being so overly smooth and polished, lacking any kind of grit despite the generally gruesome and gritty content. While I’m always glad to hear people rightfully criticising Netflix for their refusal to give their films traditional theatrical releases, I absolutely did not feel like what I was watching here would’ve been any better on the big screen, in fact it felt designed for home viewing in spite of the prestige about its presence. The main thing holding it together was Oscar Isaac, whose committed and boisterous performance was extremely engaging and simultaneously captured the Frankenstein character rather well all the while feeling unique to him (incidentally reminiscent of the character he played in Ex Machina, funnily enough). I was hooked on what the film offered concerning him but just could not get behind how unpleasant the visual presentation was. When the narration shifts to that of the Creature, however, things get a lot better in very curious ways. Not only are we treated to an equally strong and unique performance from Jacob Elordi, but it becomes evident exactly what the film is about, humanising this character and in turn drawing a compelling contrast between him and his creator in ways that previous cinematic renditions seldom have (for context, I’ve never read the original novel, so I can’t comment on how this compares to that nor how it functions as an adaptation). Rather than the lifeless and plodding machines that come to mind from the likes of Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, Elordi’s Creature is a frightened soul overwhelmed by the world it has been carelessly brought into, who tries to see it for its beauty but is constantly beset by the violent and destructive tendencies of mankind, much like that which gave way to his creation. While Frankenstein’s end of the story has a frantic pace as his maniacal ideas relentlessly buzz around and are then desperately and spectacularly realised regardless of their horrifying implications, the Creature’s is more glacial as the world is constructed so that it can be appreciated for what it is and have its natural ways respected, which makes it all the more painful when those with similar attitudes to Frankenstein hold this worldview back with their aforementioned behaviours. As this shift occurs, the overall look and feel of the film also changes for the better. Everything seems less artificial, it feels like watching real actors interacting with real spaces rather than against green screens where they’re merely plopped into whatever the VFX artists can conjure up. I suddenly felt like I was in fact watching something made by the same guy that did 2022’s Pinocchio, one of the most wonderfully tactile films in recent memory. Consequently, the themes of this portion (as well as the central divide about the film at large) were much more effectively articulated, and this was successfully sustained for the remainder of the runtime. In hindsight, part of me is then left wondering if this was intentional, that Guillermo specifically sought to portray the world according to Victor as hollow and superficial by way of extensive CG elements, and to reserve a greater level of authenticity for what is seen from the Creature’s perspective through an increased emphasis on more practical alternatives, as both means of constructions are generally sound with their respective characters and worldviews and enhance their contrasting natures in execution. I love films that negotiate with the inherent artifice of the medium in some way, so this seemed like a thoughtful approach to this material. That said, this is a Netflix film, and bland digital imagery is their trademark style at this point, so I would not be surprised if this is instead simply another product of that undesirable form with the occasional bit of soulfulness from its auteur director slipped through the cracks wherever necessary and possible. Regardless of what the intent was, the film suitably left an impression and I found myself increasingly intrigued and impressed as it panned out. I can’t say with complete certainty whether or not I think it succeeds in its project, but it’s nice to at least be left considering how that could easily be the case rather than altogether doubtful as I initially feared I would be." 7/10
NEW: The Running Man (Edgar Wright, 2025) - reviewed 18/11/2025
"I was interested in this film on the basis that it was a collaboration between Edgar Wright, one of my favourite filmmakers growing up, and Glen Powell, one of my favourite actors at the moment. I didn’t have the highest hopes for it to be anything remarkable, I was just looking forward to an outing with efforts from these two in one place, and while it suitably delivered on that front, there is a fair bit going on beneath the surface with varying degrees of success that has got me thinking. About a week ago, I revisited Wright’s Last Night in Soho, a film I was previously underwhelmed by for not having enough of what I enjoyed about his earlier works. On rewatching, however, it became apparent that there was actually plenty of what the director typically achieves in there if one were to look beyond basic features of his style, such as his quick cuts and zooms as well as his witty sense of humour, both things that I and many others seem to have a tendency to reduce him and his filmmaking to [SEE ABOVE]. This has been more or less confirmed to me by some reactions I’ve seen to The Running Man, with many noting a lack of the usual Edgar Wright-isms and thus passing it off as a blandly made piece. Having seen the film for myself, though, I would have to disagree with this assertion, as I feel there is once again plenty of Wright in here and even in some unexpected ways. First of all, even if we are to reduce Wright’s style to the aforementioned basic attributes, there are a sufficient number of instances where those can be observed. Many of the action scenes are frantically yet satisfyingly edited together and feature a suitably fast pace with oddly elegant choreography about how all the moving parts interact, similar to what can be seen in Hot Fuzz, and there are plenty of clever transitions courtesy of dynamic cinematography, reminiscent of such films as The World’s End and Shaun of the Dead. It’s also pretty funny too, not a comedy by any means but still successful in slipping a few clever quips and gags in there every so often. Sure, these aspects aren’t as prominent here as they may be elsewhere, but to deny the place of them altogether is a bit ignorant. Secondly, as I mentioned in my reevaluation of Last Night in Soho, a more overarching quality of these basic Wright features is a sense of his films calling attention to themselves in their construction, often to enhance the thesis at hand. In that film’s case, the Giallo-inspired visuals amount to a significant indulgence in artifice that greatly benefits the depiction of blurring boundaries between different points in time about the narrative and its thematic implications. In the Cornetto Trilogy, the hyperactive editing and camerawork greatly juxtaposes the mundanity of the essentially British contexts and thus reaffirms the absurdity of the situations by complementing the integration of heightened narrative elements into such. In The Running Man, we have perhaps one of the most intriguing instances of this, with a narrative set in a dystopian totalitarian state that addresses manipulation in the media and the highly constructed nature of entertainment and newsfeeds as a result of government intervention, and Wright aptly emphasises the pieces that contribute to these deceptive practices in his formalism. The main element would be how screens are used, with in-universe screens being regularly seen within the frames and occasionally becoming our sole window into the action. There is a clear contrast between how the events are presented to diegetic viewers of The Running Man television show and us real-life viewers of The Running Man film, with some moments where what we see is completely different as the ability for the villainous network to alter video footage as they see fit becomes a plot point, incidentally an uncomfortably resonant aspect in the current age of manipulative AI-generated content. This form of emphasis on elements of cinematic construction as Wright is known to do therefore aligns with this one of the film’s key projects. However, this does lead onto my main issue with the film, as I think it sort of fumbles in being completely cohesive with that project. As my description may have suggested, Wright seemingly uses the non-diegetic camera as a vessel for the truth, where despite the narration generally being restricted to central character of Ben Richards, it is largely an omniscient lens that shows what actually happens so to make the contrast between the network’s alterations more striking and thus convey the message more effectively. This works to an extent, but it could have gone a bit further by recognising the inherent subjectivity about the camera behind the film as a whole. Instead of drawing a contrast between truthful images and false ones, the film could’ve been underpinned by a broad sense of ambiguity regarding whether any of what we’re seeing is faithful to what happens in-universe or not. After all, The Running Man as a film is just as much a piece of constructed entertainment as the in-universe The Running Man television show (though obviously not due to any kind of government interference), so I think it would’ve been extremely effective if Wright instead sought to emphasise the construction of what his real-life audience is seeing and indicate how this may resemble certain diegetic elements. For example, a recurring plot element involves Richards recording video tapes that are sent to the network and shown on television. On some occasions, we see Richards in the process of producing these recordings and later how they’re presented on television, sometimes with a clear difference between the two as it is indicated that we initially saw what was actually said and later what was altered, which is then solidified by Richards’ reactions. As mentioned, this works well enough, but imagine if we perhaps only saw what the network showed alongside how Richards reacts, the uncertainty about whether what the film has shown is the truth would demonstrate the inability to trust such deliberately constructed pieces of media, a fact that would be enhanced by some of Wright’s deft, self-aware filmmaking. This issue becomes a bit more prevalent towards the ending which, no spoilers, initially seemed to be going in the direction of deliberate ambiguity but instead settles for a more conventional resolution where everything is more or less clarified, and despite the satisfactory pay off there, it feels like a missed opportunity. Nevertheless, what the film lacks in having a coherent thesis it more than makes up for in being wildly entertaining. Glen Powell continues to prove that he is one of the most likeable and enjoyable screen presences at the moment, and in the role of Richards is given more to work with than previous vehicles such as Top Gun: Maverick or Twisters. He holds his own in the action scenes expectedly well, and even has some solid emotional moments too. I can’t wait to see more of this guy, he’s got all the qualities of a traditional movie star / leading man that the industry currently doesn’t have enough of, and I just can’t get enough of him. Seeing a trailer for one of his upcoming films beforehand only made the experience better. Additionally, similar to the other dystopian Stephen King adaptation from this year, The Long Walk, the seemingly monotonous premise here never becomes tiring; after a point it is reducible to merely Richards quite literally running from one action set piece to another and meeting various characters at each stage, but there’s plenty of variety in terms of how things unfold to keep matters engaging, and the setting feels well realised and diverse too. While the film may not be wholly successful in executing some of its theses, it doesn’t fail in terms of approximating the intensity and relentlessness about the in-universe game show and iterating what is shocking about it, which is essential to the themes of the story. Overall I had a great time with this. While I can envision a better and richer film in here somewhere, that doesn’t devalue what fun there is to be had with what’s already here. Whether it’s the curious facets of an auteur going into more new territory or just the Glen Powell-shaped eye candy, you can certainly do a lot worse than with a film like The Running Man, so it’s an easy recommendation from me. Oh, and it’s way better than the ‘87 version." 8/10
NEW: Wicked: For Good (Jon M. Chu, 2025) - reviewed 20/11/2025
"Wicked… For… Good… where does one even begin here? Seeing this back-to-back with the first film was an experience to say the least, not the most insane or overwhelming time I’ve had at a cinema, but it would probably be up there. As I left the screening room after all five hours of Wickedness, I knew I would have to give it at least a day before even attempting to get any of the thoughts buzzing around my head into words. Now that the dust has sort of began to settle, allow me to try and wrap my head around what I experienculated [...] First of all, a necessary update regarding where I stand on Wicked (2024) - it’s good. I’m not super familiar with the stage version but I think the film does a solid job of feeling like a uniquely cinematic take on the material, sufficiently using the distinct apparatus for expression well despite some drawbacks here and there. It’s a great crowd pleaser with some endlessly entertaining performances that do justice to the music and characters where the construction elsewhere may not, and having seen the film three times now I can safely say I enjoy it a lot overall. In my original, more cynical review, I criticised the structure as an inelegant feature-length take on merely the first act of the stage musical, a point I actually disagree with now as I instead find it to be structurally sound, flowing relatively smoothly without seeming stuffed with filler, and ultimately reaching a concrete conclusion that lets it stand firmly on its own and not seem too incomplete. Is it perfect? Not entirely, but it has a discernible enough arc and works independently despite technically being one half of a greater whole, and it also sets the stage perfectly for this next instalment to fly in and tie everything together. So, the question remainifies, does what we’ve ended up with do just that? Here’s the thing, given that this film and its predecessor were made simultaneously, I wasn’t expecting a considerable change in the overall quality, and the fact is that much of what can be said about the first Wicked film is also applicable here, so there wasn’t much new of note for me to pick up on in many general areas. Consequently, my main curiosity about Wicked: For Good wound up being in what this particular portion of the material has to offer when put to film, and I was specifically intrigued by its narrative elements and what the implications of the cinematic construction are there, as the contents at hand reveals certain qualities that weren’t as apparent previously. Broadly speakifying, I really enjoy the alternate approach to the Oz universe in Wicked as a whole; my understanding of this franchise at large is primarily derived from 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, and while I love that film enormously, I like what Wicked does in expanding on as well as revising what it establishes. In that film, everything is presented on a purely surface level, with the fantastical nature of Oz being overtly striking in its distance from reality, and the people encountered by the protagonist, Dorothy, having only their basic exterior characteristics registered, such as the Wicked Witch of the West (known here as Elphaba) seeming unambiguously evil and sinister while Glinda the Good seems completely pure and kind. However, these things really only seem this way according to Dorothy’s perspective as an outsider who has randomly been dropped into this world, as she never gets the chance to be properly familiarised with everything going on in Oz, in part due to her main focus on getting home swiftly. In reinterpreting matters, Wicked crucially understands this by offering a more all-encompassing and nuanced take on the world of Oz, most obviously in how the central duo of Elphaba and Glinda are characterised. It’s made clear how much more there is to both of them and their motivations than was previously depicted, Elphaba being misunderstood in her noble intent to expose the fraudulent Wizard and Glinda conversely being questionably complicit in his manipulative ways. In addition, the setting around them is more fleshed out, with the different factions of Oz and the ways they interact being properly acknowledged and explored too, notably the pseudo-fascistic implications of the Wizard being a trickster seeking complete power and control along with wrongly oppressing the animal population. This is particularly important in the case of For Good because it involves an extract of Wicked that takes place during the same events as the 1939 film, showing them from an alternate angle and thus allowing the greater complexity at hand to be reinforced more so than was achieved in its predecessor. These merits can’t entirely be attributed to the film as much of them are no doubt qualities of its source material, but, the intent regarding how the film specifically goes about executing things on this front is extremely interesting, and circles back to another issue I once had. On my initial viewing of the first Wicked film, I was a bit ambivalent about the choice to construct Oz in a photorealistic manner, pointing out that cinema as a medium doesn’t necessarily equate to realism and citing The Wizard of Oz as an example of how this franchise has been more attractively interpreted on film in the past by way of emphasising film artifice. On my second viewing, I was a bit more lenient as I instead appreciated that it was taking the chance to offer a new visual interpretation of the universe that distinguished things from the 1939 film. Having seen For Good, which features the aforementioned direct parallels with the latter, I now consider this creative choice to actually be especially fitting and even somewhat rich. In The Wizard of Oz, the iconic attention on artifice in the production design, costumes, and more amounts to a larger-than-life, magical atmosphere that completely aligns with and complements its worldview of being based around Dorothy’s superficial, subjective perception. Wicked, being a more grounded and in-depth approach to this world and some of the same events, thus demands a different style, and the choice to construct Oz in a photorealistic way thus helps to reflect the added nuance. So, I actually appreciate this decision now, where even if it is admittedly less attractive than those good old fashioned, colourful painted backdrops and extravagant artificial costumes, I can’t deny that it helps make the universe feel more complex in a way that the specific interpretation here requires. That said, constructificating a cinematic world in a way that feels truly real and lived-in requires a certain level of care about the formalism, and this is something that both Wicked films sadly aren’t completely successful with, instead adhering to many common faults about modern filmmaking that keep them unintentionally feeling like the mechanical, artificial objects that they are. The depth of field is often aggressively shallow and foregrounds the subjects to the extent where they feel removed from whatever space they’re meant to be inhabiting, the editing features some excessive and unmotivated cutting that frustratingly prevents the audience from being able to take in certain environments as their attention is kept solely on the subjects (and usually specifically what they are saying / singing), and the lighting is regularly uninspired and lifeless. While I can praise the intent to construct Wicked’s take on Oz as more realistic in taking it to film, the particular way this is executed doesn’t completely extract all the potential that comes with it. On the topic of the varying portrayals of similar events across these different versions, I have to mention Wicked: For Good’s handling of Dorothy as a character, specifically how lacklustre it is given that most of what she does occurs off-screen. I don’t recall Dorothy’s role being significant in Wicked on stage, and I understand the choice to minimise the time spent with her since we already have a film regarding such and the audience can most likely fill in the necessary blanks themselves, but her involvement is nonetheless crucial to how things pan out here, so keeping it deliberately limited devalues this as an individual text, rendering it overly reliant on what has come before in prior iterations to hold its meaning. I’m not saying Dorothy needed tons of focus, but at least showing the key steps of her journey (meeting Glinda on arrival, encountering the other characters along the Yellow Brick Road) would’ve been enough, and could also be achieved all the while upholding the choice to hide her face, something I’m not opposed to in itself but adds to the jarring quality about the character in her current form. As is almost never the case with me, I weirdly wasn’t so interested in what Wicked: For Good had to offer as a musical, largely because, as alludulated to, it was simply more of the same shenanigans as the last film that I’ve already devoted a great deal of thought to, hence why I inserted became more preoccupied with considering what was going on narratively. However, there are a few musical moments worth highlighting, some of which might even make the film a slight improvement over its predecessor in terms of being wholly cinematic in crafting such. One of the most memorable scenes in the film was the song “The Girl in the Bubble”, consisting of a series of long takes that suitably outlined and respected an expansive, tangible cinematic space, with satisfying transitions through the use of mirrors to create an enchanting fluidity and enhance the sense of close introspection. I’ve since learned that this song was actually written for the film, and that makes sense as it feels like it was designed in tandem with the accompanying visuals, not being a case of one clearly having come first. I also enjoyed the way that many of the ensemble numbers here, such as the opening and finale, utilised the simple filmic ability to cut between different spaces and perspectives with ease quite neatly, in a way that I don’t feel could be quite as refined on stage. It’s simple things like this that can make a film adaptation feel like its content belongs in the new medium just as much as it did in where it originated, and there are plenty of nice examples across these two films. That said, when thinking about the connotations of the more realistic depiction of Oz in the Wicked films, one can’t help but wonder what this means for them as musical pieces. Overall, I don’t think it does the musical angle any great favours, as while it does well to distinguish this new interpretation of this world and narrative on film, it doesn’t incisively align with the nature of adhering to musical form in a similar way. Jon M. Chu is a talented director in this genre for sure, easily capable of crafting dynamic and engaging musical sequences in a vacuum, but there’s not always a clear alignment between what he does there and what the thesis of the film he’s working within is. For comparison, I’d say his film adaptation of In the Heights is a far more cohesive marriage between style and themes, as the overarching realistic, down-to-earth worldview of that film makes its occasional heightened musical moments all the more outstanding and magical, thus perfectly solidifying the theme of finding things to appreciate and celebrate amid everyday struggles. With both Wicked films, the best I can say is that the musical form helps to reaffirm the place of Oz as a fantastical space in spite of how real and lived-in it strives to be elsewhere. Although, once again comparing it to the 1939 film, I suppose it could be argued that the more elaborate melodies and lyricism here compared to what that film contained in its musical numbers can be taken as another means of conveying the added complexity in Wicked, though that is something more to be praised of the stage musical than this as merely an adaptation. When considering other factors from the first film that remain applicable here, I think it goes without saying that this cast is rather spectaculatory. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are wonderful and feel so intrinsically connected to these roles by now, which I think is testament to how excellently they both achieve the delicate balance of embodying the characters while also making them their own. Jeff Goldblum has a lot more screen time here compared to the first film, and that was very welcome as he’s also very enjoyable and well suited to the role of the Wizard. On the other hand, I really hate to say it, but Michelle Yeoh is honestly quite an outstanding weak link; I didn’t love her in the previous film, and sitting through her practically identical performance here made it clear how stilted and almost out of place she is in both. She’s a great actress as we all know, but feels oddly miscast here for some reason. Also, this isn’t a major criticism, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed by Colman Domingo as the Cowardly Lion, a casting choice I was very excited for going in only to discover that he had all of about four lines of dialogue in the end. I appreciate that the character isn’t the most prominent, but after all the buzz regarding his surprise last minute casting, I thought maybe there’d be more going on for him here. Obviously he made the most of what he was given, but I definitely wanted more, which could have been the case if Dorothy’s antics didn’t mostly happen off-screen as previously noted. I suppose the one final thing to discuss is how these two films ultimately function as two elongated halves of one overarching narrative now that all is said and done. Thankfully, this second half of the pair is paced and structured more or less as well as the first, not coming across bloated and feeling sufficiently worth existing as its own thing. Furthermore, there’s a sense of scope across the two that I really enjoyed, and watching them back-to-back helped bring that quality out. There is a fair passage of time between Acts One and Two of Wicked, and these respective film adaptations take advantage of that to make the journey and growth within feel as epic and impactful as it ought to on the screen. As the conclusion rolls around, the amount of time spent on this story feels worthwhile, with callbacks to the opening of the first film being satisfying only because of how distant they now feel and just how much new insight it seems as though we’ve acquired since then, much of which reframes what came before. This is something that I genuinely don’t think would have been as effective had this just been one film, which you would rarely find me arguing as I’m usually a huge advocate for narrative films being as self-contained as possible since that’s one of the things I like most about storytelling in cinema. Although, in line with how I ended my original review of Wicked from this time last year, this should absolutely not become the common practice for musical theatre adaptations on film. Wicked is an exception for a multitude of reasons, whether it’s just because the insane popularity of the musical can be said to grant it the right to be more expansive and self-indulgent in the process of adaptation, or because of how distinct the first and second acts are in their arcs and tones that enables them to better be taken as individual entities. Only something of this scale, status, and style can get away with individual adaptations for its two halves, and unlike how potential future adaptations of other properties may be conceived, here it feels like it came from a place of sincerity on behalf of the filmmakers, who hold a clear amount of respect for the source material and what a cultural cornerstone so many of its facets are, not necessarily being fixated on the chance to increase profits. As such, I can let this one slide, but otherwise, stage adaptations should stick to finding ways of being efficient and effective within the cinematic medium as they always have in the past. To concludify, I think Wicked: For Good is, well, good. While in many ways retaining the exact strengths and weaknesses of its predecessor and thus bringing little new to the discussion, the particular portions of the material that it spans reveal some qualities that I previously didn’t consider, and while not always completely cohesive or successful in exercising these, I’m at least left with some new elements worth admiring about the films, both as singular texts and as a combined entity. On a more personal note, however, I am on the whole very grateful for the existence of these in their current forms, for all that may be wrong with them. They’ve been the catalysts for raising a lot of issues about cinema and specifically film musicals that are now key to how I understand my feelings towards such, and that is a valuable feature of any object regardless of its flaws. Beyond that, though, my various viewings over the last year have also simply been some of the most memorable and formative experiences I’ve had with films in recent times, as while I can sit here in retrospect and deconstruct them as the complicated texts that they are, when I’m in the moment of watching them I simply can’t ignore the desire to be swept up in all the crowd-pleasing musical joy and wonder they so effortlessly deliver. They will likely always be imperfect in my mind, and I’ll probably always prefer the likes of Judy Garland when I want to spend time in the land of Oz, but I will equally likely always have a soft spot for them that won’t be going away any time soon. With all that being said, I suppose you could say that, because I saw these films, I have in fact been changed, for good!" 7/10
