Movie: Wicked For Good

There are many things to admire about the two Wicked movies, the final one, "Wicked: For Good," released on 11/21/2025. This movie has been in the planning stages for many years, and both films were shot together, starting in December 2022. The entire production was put on hold in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike and then resumed and finally wrapped in late January 2024. The production costs for the two films were a huge $455.8 million, and after receiving a tax reimbursement from the U.K., resulted in the net cost of $370.7 million.

What I admire the most is the large amount of man-hours that went into creating the elaborate sets, musical arrangements, costumes, screenwriting, and acting for two movies based on the long-running Broadway play. The brilliant move that the producers of Wicked pulled off was releasing Wicked in two films over a period of a year. The reasons were that the movie would be too long, and as we find out in the latest release, there are too many slow and boring parts in the second movie that would have ruined the high ratings and box office if these scenes were included in the first movie. Brilliantly, the first movie, which received a very high 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, set the stage to maximize the profits the second movie will make, as the anticipation for the second movie a year later increased the odds of much higher box office, despite the much lower 70% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

The problem with this second film is that much of the story is too slow and erratic, with not enough interaction between the two main stars Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). The ending does have a very well-done and highly emotional reunion between these two characters, with an emotional song at a level of quality more frequent in the first movie. The story about how Elphaba becomes a wicked witch, because of her quest to help animals who are not being treated well by the Wizard of Oz, is somewhat convoluted within both films.

Unfortunately, the low Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 71% are correct this time, mainly because of the high quality of the first movie and the drop-off in the second movie. The rabid fans of Wicked will mostly be disappointed at the pacing and quality of this last movie. The most obvious solution would first be to have more scenes with Glinda and Elphaba with them acting and singing together. To be true to the Broadway play, there were just too many slow-moving and unnecessary parts in this second story.

For any true fan of "Wicked", it would be impossible not to see this second movie, which does have enough good parts to recommend.

Movie Review: Sisu: Road to Revenge

The new fictional World War II movie "Sisu: Road to Revenge" is not really a movie, but more of a series of violent action scenes with one man from Finland trying to get revenge against the entire German army. The reason for Aatami's (Jorma Tommila) revenge trek, other than his country being invaded by Germany is not very clear, not that this matters in an unusual movie like this one.

The action scenes are almost all crazy, impossible, and insane, almost as off-the-wall as the inane action scenes in the latest Fast and Furious movies. The other obvious issue is that no human being can be injured as severely as Aatami and still be alive.

The only known actor in this foreign film is Stephen Lang, who plays the German leader trying to kill Aatami. There is an extremely violent fight scene at the end of this movie that is both impossible to describe and violates all laws of physics and basic logic. This last scene is the entire movie in a nutshell.

This movie is difficult to review, so I will agree with the very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but only for the intense war action scenes. I will give this movie only 50% for its very limited screenplay and almost no dialogue. I recommend this film only for those who enjoy gratuitous violent action scenes and don't mind a lack of a story.

Movie Review: Now You See Me: Now You Don't

The new movie "Now You See Me: Now You Don't" is the third and hopefully last in this movie franchise, the first two: Now You See Me (2013) and Now You See Me 2 (2016). In order to be relevant in Hollywood and make enough money to survive in California, one of the most expensive areas in the world, an actor has to keep making movies and money in order to afford the costs of living in a state where almost all of the movies are made. So making money over quality is a reality of life as an actor in Hollywood to much of the time.

Unfortunately great stories and screenplays are few and far between and this third installment was written and greenlighted only to make money and not to put out a quality film. The plot makes almost no sense, and just jumps from one unexplained scene to another one for two hours entirely for the purpose of showing some magic and misdirection, most of which is either impossible or ridiculous. The reason why screenwriting is so difficult is that the story has to make sense, action and scenes have to be explained and predefined, along with continuity throughout the entire story. This film has none of these essential ingredients.

The original cast returns in this movie, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Morgan Freeman. For this third film, new cast members have been added, which will probably mean there is a long term plan to extend this nightmare into new movies. The new cast includes Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa and Henry Fisher as they all try to stop a criminal mastermind Veronika Vanderberg played by Rosamund Pike from using Diamonds to launder money for other master criminals. On top of this being an overall bad movie, it is slow and very boring in too many areas, making the audience hope that it will all be over soon.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating is a too high 60%, with my rating around 20%, hoping that this will be end to a pretty stupid series of movies trying to be about magicians solving crimes.