Directed by Jon M Chu | Written by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, based on the musical by Stephen Schwartz and the novel by Gregory Maguire | ▲▲▲1/2 | In Cinemas 

Here it is, the sequel to Wicked: Part One, which came out to substantial box office last November, an adaptation of the award-winning and beloved broadway show. It’s an alternative take on the story of The Wizard of Oz reexamining the relationship between the Wicked Witch, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), and Glinda (Ariana Grande), the Good Witch.

You can click on the link above for my full review, but I’m happy to tell you I found the first Wicked to be a huge, cotton candy concoction of a movie with a salty liquorice heart. I appreciated its themes — that we should all examine our inherent biases and always question the official story from powerful figures. I also found it indulges in every teen and tween movie cliche going back to Frankie and Annette, and is way too long. And yet it’s only the first half of the whole package — the two parts together make a close to five hour movie, almost twice the length of the stage show. Was that necessary? I’d argue not.

Yet, this is what we have, and surprisingly, the second half is better than the first. It moves at a better clip and offers more in the way of plot development — fewer pointless debutante balls. Like the first half, the subtext of this super-sweet story is how the powers that be use propaganda to control the message, and will often demonize those who are different. This time, the real core of it is the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda, who circle each other for the entirety of the movie, leading to an enormous, emotional duet right at the end.

Getting there we see the elevation of Glinda as a key part of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his aide de camp, Madame Morrible’s (Michelle Yeoh), plans to make people in Oz feel good by giving her floating bubble transport, this while framing Elphaba as public enemy number one. Glinda is also publicly engaged to local hunk Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), while he still holds a flame for Elphaba.

There’s the subplot about Elphaba’s sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode), who’s become a functionary in the Wizard’s government while forcing the Munchkin, Boq (Ethan Slater), to serve her. None of these other characters feel particularly essential, but their stories are knocked off one at a time, including the issue around the freedom of the talking animals Elphaba took on as her mission at the end of the first movie.

The emotional heft doesn’t really manifest until Elphaba and Glinda are in the same place at the same time, leaving the rest of the movie strangely bereft when they aren’t — poor Fiyero’s point of the love triangle doesn’t have a chance compared to the chemistry between the two women. The movie also presumes we all know the story of The Wizard of Oz like the back of our hands — when the prequel becomes a midquel, a lot of the just-off-screen action relates to events in the 1939 original. I haven’t seen it in years, so it was occasionally a challenge to connect all the dots. Elphaba is unjustifiably mean to a little girl from Kansas who was given her sister’s shoes — the storytelling between adaptations isn’t seamless.

The biggest problem, though, is we never really know what Elphaba and Glinda want, both of their core motivations are never clear. Too often the plot has stuff happening to them, rather than their decision-making pushing things forward.

But that doesn’t really matter — the emotional connection between the two women is what’s important, that and the spectacle: One set piece has the camera moving through mirrors in Glinda’s quarters, it’s genuinely impressive. In the end it’s not flying monkeys, it’s the leads and the big songs that carry the day.