Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Olivia Colman, Jim Carter, Tom Davis, Paterson Joseph, Keegan-Michael Key, Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson, Sally Hawkins
Intro:
... wonky ...
Wonka is wonky, suffering from a similar fate as Mary Poppins Returns, and too many other remakes/origin stories/reimaginings in trying to recapture the magic of the original.
First appearing in Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka has been brought to life in the cinema by Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, and Johnny Depp in 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In Wonka, he is portrayed by Timothée Chalamet (leaning more into Wilder than Depp), arriving at a portside city to make his fortune by introducing the public to his magical chocolate.
The generously naive Wonka is soon penniless, and is soon taken advantage of by Olivia Colman’s Mrs Scrubbit and Tom Davis’s Bleacher. Imprisoned in a laundry room among other softies, including Jim Carter’s Abacus Crunch – an accountant, of course, Willy Wonka must figure out a way to outsmart the three industrial chocolatiers – Paterson Joseph’s Slugworth, Matt Lucas’s Prodnose and Mathew Baynton’s Fickelgruber – in order to launch himself into the world, and do good deeds, of course.
Wonka comes courtesy of the team that made the Paddington films, which some commentators – who have not seen enough films, are taking the piss, or both – reckon are the best films ever made, particularly the sequel. Well, they’ll certainly love Wonka. It is stuffed with top performers of stage and screen, there’s an undeniable wit, a childish charm, a roguishness to all of the brittle characters, cute use of animals, and a strong underdog message. It’s like a David Walliams book come to life with a Hollywood budget.
The songs by Neil Hannon have potential to break-out, but they could have used stronger singers/performances. Perhaps they will backwards engineer this one and the stage play adaptation will be a massive hit, because, as a film it doesn’t quite work to its full potential.
Ultimately, it comes down to the impossibility of recreating magic when the audience knows the trick. The showmanship is all there, but the exhilaration is missing.
