I said at the start that turning “Wicked” the musical into a two-part big screen epic was a mistake. Just how big a mistake is obvious as this bloated beast staggers to the end of the Yellow Brick Road in “Wicked: For Good,” aka “Wicked Part Two.”

Five hours of director Jon M. Chu slow-walking us through Nathan Crowley’s lavish production design colored and given its art deco curves by a whole team of art directors while we’re feasting our eyes on Paul Tazewell’s Oztastic costumes just buries the story.

Any fear anybody might have had that the charming if not the most memorable stage musical “Wicked” would be lost in all this excess is confirmed. And don’t get me started on what all this back engineering and other-point-of-view revisionism does to the classic MGM film, the L. Frank Baum prairie populist novel and poor Dorothy.

Oz and the Wizard figure they’ve vanquished the young witch in green, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) by “branding” her The Wicked Witch of the West. Her sister (Marissa Bode) may still be an Oz insider, “governor” and happily tied to the Munchkin Boq (Ethan Slater). And her bestie, the dizzy and adorably shallow Glinda (Ariana Grande) may pine for her return so that she can sit her down with the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and mend fences.

But Elphaba knows the Wizard is a charlatan, a humbugging fraud who is scapegoating minorities (talking animals), restricting freedoms (Munchkin travel) and spying on and imposing his will on everybody else through his soldiers and flying monkeys. She sees the cruelty and vows to fight it, often in song.

Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) has her clutches on Glinda, appealing to the cute fake witch’s vanity to “keep morale up.” And Glinda and her team (Bowen Yang and Bronwyn James) are all in, and all about image.

“We really should look into trademarking the word ‘good!'”

Glinda’s easily distracted, and her stage-managed courtship to the Prince (Jonathan Bailey) named for an infamous Pontiac sports car has an Oz-Themed Wedding in the works.

But with the land brainwashed so that “No one in Oz will be happy until you’re dead,” Elphaba has no choice but to fight.

SOMEbody’s got to conjure up a tornado. SOMEbody’s going to steal someone else’s beau. And SOMEbody’s going to have a house fall on her, turning a pair of shoes into an excuse to skip and march all the way from Kansas, taking the newly-opened Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City.

Splitting the musical in half puts the weight of “message” and “seriousness” mostly on the second film. The songs are more downbeat, with ballads and laments dominating the score.

All the padding and overstuffed screen time still leaves the shifts in tone and later act introduction of characters abrupt and sloppily handled.

Stretching, stuffing and filling make this film play flatter, as if all the fun is gone. The jokes are few and far between, and they die of loneliness in the wait.

There were allegories about the farm economy, “the gold standard” and the city vs. farm country schism of the 19th century in the original novel. The revisionist musical made inclusion, acceptance and kindness its message. And now the films take another tack, resisting authoritarian cruelty, corruption and a blathering liar/leader who would divide us with his lies and lead us to ruin.

“The truth is just what a lot of people agree on,” the Wizard purrs. And the people, starting with Glinda, buy that “truth.”

The Wizard’s “so wonderful it’s a part of his name now!”

The sparkling comic pixie Grande and the serious and seriously talented Erivo don’t get to take us by surprise a second time, any more than the bigger and bigger spectacle of it all is any more impressive than the first time we saw it, one two hour and forty-five minute movie before this one.

The Tin Man isn’t just heartless, he’s bitter and vengeful. The Lion (Colman Domingo) is determined to blame the wrong person for his gutlessness. Dorothy?

“That mulish farm girl” is how Madame Morrible describes her.

Waiting around for all the characters you remember from the 1939 movie to make their entrance after that twister and tumbling house, vividly recreated by a state of the arts effects team, becomes cold comfort for the viewer.

We’re not just following the Yellow Brick Road. “Wicked: For Good” makes us feel like we’re laying the bricks like a Munchkin road crew, with no end in sight.

Rating: PG

Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, with the voice of Colman Domingo.

Credits: Directed by Jon M. Chu, scripted by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, based on the musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman which was based on a novel by Gregory Maguire that was based on characters created by L. Frank Baum. A Universal release.

Running time: 2:18