Wonka
Warner BrosWilly Wonka & The Chocolate Factory is the quintessential family film: its first half’s faux-documentary is a scathing indictment on the follies of a consumerist society so deeply invested in their brand loyalty towards Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) that they will do anything to get one of his coveted Golden tickets. A classic scene involves a husband’s kidnapping, where the wife tells the police she will do anything to get him back until the detective says the kidnappers will free her husband if she gives them her box of Wonka bars. She cheekily replies: “How long will they give me to think it over?” Kids won’t grasp the profound messages until reaching an older age, signaling just how timeless Mel Stuart’s reinterpretation of Roald Dahl’s Wonka craze is. However, when Wilder’s Wonka shows up and brings five lucky families on the adventure of a lifetime, the movie grows more unpredictable as it strolls to its emotional finale.
No one could’ve ever topped that film, not even Paddington alum Paul King, who helms the prequel to the aforementioned Willy Wonka movie simply titled Wonka. No matter how hard King (and cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, who went from crafting the crisp visual language of Park Chan-wook’s oeuvre to making the laziest images as a Hollywood cinematographer in Uncharted, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and now Wonka) tries, he would never achieve the level of success Mel Stuart and David L. Wolper did when they re-hauled Dahl’s original text into a musical, to which he famously hated.
While Dahl’s estate approved Wonka, he might’ve not liked the musical prequel that much either, which sees Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) pit himself against the kingpins of the Chocolate Cartel: Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton), Prodnose (Matt Lucas) and Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), who control the Gallery Gourmet by making “simple,” but delicious chocolate. They are even in cahoots with a corrupt priest (Rowan Atkinson, as charming as ever) and chief of police (Keegan Michael-Key, who is unfortunately underused and reduced to fatphobic humor), whom they pay with deliciously addictive chocolate to “get rid” of the competition.
But Wonka has a plan of his own to bring the cartel down, as he teams up with Noodle (Calah Lane) and a group of “prisoners” who didn’t read the fine print of innkeepers Scrubbitt (Olivia Colman) and Bleacher’s (Tom Davis) contract. This includes Slugworth’s former accountant, Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), Lottie Bell (Rakhee Thrakrar), Larry Chucklesworth (Rich Fulcher), and Piper Benz (Natasha Rothwell). With the aid of an Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant, who will seemingly do anything for Paul King after Paddington 2), Wonka will now pull off the biggest chocolate heist the world has ever seen so he can truly become the greatest chocolatier in history.
King knows he’ll never surpass Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which serves as his advantage to draw a unique story that isn’t reliant on the original text, while also incorporating multiple references to the film. Perhaps the line drops from the original Willy Wonka film are a bit egregious. Still, anyone with a special connection to the 1971 film will likely tear up once Chalamet sings Pure Imagination. Speaking of Chalamet, he completely nails the charm and surprising hat tricks of Willy Wonka without ever attempting to imitate Gene Wilder (or whatever the hell Johnny Depp was doing in Tim Burton’s 2005 adaptation of the book).
He’s a younger Wonka and doesn’t have Wilder's psychological experience, which makes him more charming and witty and less of an unpredictable mind to peer through. Scenes involving Wonka’s deceased mother (Sally Hawkins) add warmth to the film and the character. His inner pain is more understood here: a man with big dreams hoping to make his late mother proud. Chalamet also shares incredible chemistry with Lane, who explodes the screen in a staggering breakout role (it’s no surprise that she ultimately got nominated for a Critics Choice Award earlier this week). The two fill Chung’s frame with enough infectious charm that they more than make up for the lack of pure imagination on screen.
Regardless of Burton’s flaws in the 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, no one can deny how vivid the film looks, making the titular chocolate factory something that kids (and adults) would want to visit. The same applies to the 1971 film – it’s so imaginative that anyone watching wished it were real. None of that is found in King’s Wonka, and while the musical numbers are certainly lively, which allows Chung to play with [limited] light and color and give some movement to the camera, the CGI looks unfinished, and the green-screen-laden tableaux are so fake that the overall visual result is a drab affair, especially on an IMAX screen.
It’s a cardinal sin (pun absolutely intended, regarding Atkinson’s character) for a Willy Wonka movie to look this boring. Still, there are at least interesting flourishes here and there, most notably a back-to-the-camera shot of Keegan Michael-Key’s chief of police walking in the Church while Chocolate Monks aum. For some reason, it’s the most staggering image of the film because it feels plucked out of a different mode of filmmaking than the rest of the movie, quasi-spiritual in its presentation, making this rather mundane shot look epic in scale and scope while the rest is washed.
It’s even worse when Grant shows up as an Oompa-Loompa and likely solely accepts the part because he got to work with Paul King again. He looks miserable during the entire film, fully knowing how embarrassing it’ll be to see himself on an IMAX screen with orange skin, green hair, and ridiculously shameful CGI work. No wonder he’s been acting embarrassed during that press tour, because who wouldn’t be?
But there’s something about King’s sense of humor and its musical numbers that makes the whole affair strangely compelling. The blend of genres highly indicates King’s appreciation of Stuart’s Willy Wonka, which blended documentary-styled vignettes with family-friendly whimsy and intricate musical sequences. Wonka goes from full-on hyperkinetic musical to intimate character study, crime caper, and slapstick comedy, and none of the shifts in tone and atmosphere feel jarring. Instead, they feel perfectly calibrated to how Wonka’s behavior shifts from moment to moment as he adapts to his new environment and uses his wit and charm to defeat a controlling and manipulative cartel. It also helps that the trio of villains is devilishly good here, representing the cartoonish and caricatural charm of Dahl-written antagonists with gusto, and share the best musical number of the film, with lots of bright colors and confetti accompanying a highly-catchy bop.
And it’s because of this that Wonka mostly succeeds, alongside one of Chalamet’s best turns, who perfectly understands the charm needed to play Willy Wonka and capture the hearts of a new generation who will tune into this film for him and hopefully discover the magnetic portrayal of Willy Wonka that Gene Wilder gave to the world with such pure imagination. It may not be as sharp as Mel Stuart’s movie nor as visually striking as Tim Burton’s take on the material, still, it certainly stands on its own two feet as a good piece of entertainment and one that reaffirms Paul King as a great confectioner of high-quality family cinema.