It’s difficult to talk about the halves of a two-part adaptation as truly separate, but Wicked: For Good benefits from being a “part two” instead of a true sequel. Ultimately, they tell one story. You can’t really know how you feel about the project until you’ve seen the whole thing.

As successful as Wicked was a year ago, it could only offer viewers a suspended joy that depends on For Good sticking the landing. But after just a few minutes, I realized that feeling was working in Wicked: For Good‘s favor. The two movies were filmed together – the continuity of style, tone, and performance is seamless. If you enjoyed what Wicked did with the material, For Good is exactly what you were hoping for. All the exhilaration that’s been hanging in the back of your mind comes rushing back the moment the first musical number starts.

Mind you, this is the lesser of the two halves: It addresses none of the first movie’s flaws, while finding a couple new ones to add to the mix. (Given I feel much the same way about Acts I & II of the stage production, I wasn’t all that surprised.) But it delivers on the emotional promise of Part One, basking in its glow rather than lurking in its shadow.

Once Wicked: For Good Overcomes A Slow Start, It Doesn’t Let Up

Wicked: For Good picks up years after the first film’s rousing finale, in which Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) sings “Defying Gravity” as she aligns herself against the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldbum), who she discovered was behind the growing persecution of animals. She exists now as public enemy #1, formally branded the Wicked Witch of the West by Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and her propaganda machine. Operating out of a secret home in the forest, she disrupts the Wizard’s efforts wherever she can, but is thoroughly losing the war of public opinion.

Glinda (Ariana Grande), meanwhile, has stepped into the role of Elphaba’s opposite, Glinda the Good. Her life is all about keeping up appearances, from feigning magical powers with the Wizard’s tech to announcing an engagement to Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), now a Captain leading the task force to capture the Wicked Witch. Her love for him is genuine, but even though he agrees to marry her, she cannot escape the sense that his heart isn’t really in it.

The two friends struggle in their lives apart from each other, and the movie with them. Elphaba’s opening raid on a team building the Yellow Brick Road via forced animal labor is visually quite rough, bringing to mind right off the bat the criticisms some had of the first movie’s aesthetic approach. The socio-political situation of Oz isn’t rendered with much more depth than in the stage musical, nor does the film do much with the passage of time that would make re-immersion in this world especially interesting. These first few minutes get things off to a noticeably creaky start.

The next chapter in the story of Nessarose (Marissa Bode), now Governor of Munchkinland, and Boq (Ethan Slater), who she keeps with her by any means necessary, rescues things a bit. Director Jon M. Chu films the Tin Man sequence with the same, almost surprising intensity as the Flying Monkey attack in Wicked: Part One, and it better than anything establishes the darker tone of For Good. But things don’t fully get back on track until Elphaba and Glinda meet again in Oz, on the eve of Glinda’s wedding – after which it’s off to the races.

Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande Shine As Wicked: For Good’s Emotional Center

Glinda in a ballgown and tiara looking dismayed while surrounded by anti-Elphaba propaganda in Wicked: For Good

Wicked is really the story of the unlikely and life-changing friendship between these two women, and Chu’s adaptation succeeds because of how well it taps into this emotional current. Once this relationship retakes center stage, the film’s pull is practically irresistible. Erivo and Grande get to deepen their stellar work from the first movie as their characters genuinely wound each other, less out of malice than out of circumstance, and have to grapple with how this changes their bond. Through them, the tension of this political struggle has actual heft.

Both get more chances to shine in musical numbers as well. Echoing her defining rendition of “The Wizard and I,” Erivo’s “No Good Deed” is the standout, and benefits from Chu’s most impactful staging. And “For Good,” their duet, is just as beautifully sung and loaded with feeling. It will, I think, have lasting power on its own terms – but there’s something special about experiencing it on screen after having lived through Wicked‘s press tour. Over months of shared interviews, Grande and Erivo have looked at each other in the same loving, teary-eyed way, but that metatextual connection makes their performance that much more touching.

Wicked: For Good does stumble at various points. The much-touted new songs by returning songwriter Stephen Schwartz are superfluous, and there’s a laughably regrettable decision near the end involving Jeff Goldblum that only avoids disaster by being very brief. But all the same magic that powered the first film is still at work in this one. If you’re inclined to be swept away by the elaborate costumes and sets, engrossing group numbers (“March of the Witch Hunters” is another winner), and infectious energy, there’s nothing here that will put too much of a dent in your good time.