Grande shines but 'Wicked: For Good' unable to defy gravity

As it turns out, “Wicked” is not too big to fail. In fact, it may be all the excess baggage that weighs down the second installment, making it impossible for the sequel “Wicked: For Good’ to defy gravity.

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Though the first part “Wicked” did take its sweet time to achieve liftoff, while building out a world that came from over a century of storytelling (plus revising and revisiting), starting with Frank L. Baum's 1900 fantasy novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," the 1939 film adaptation “The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland, Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” and the Tony-winning blockbuster Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman adapted from that.

With “Wicked: For Good,” directed by Jon M. Chu, written by Holzman and Dana Fox, not only do we have to make our way through those many layers of reference, we have to bushwhack through the cultural overgrowth that was the marketing and publicity blitz for “Wicked” — the merch, the memes featuring stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, costar Jonathan Bailey's newly designated status as People's Sexiest Man Alive, the much-documented friendship between Grande and costar Bowen Yang, etc., etc.