If movies were a Cadbury Roses assortment then Wonka would be the Turkish delight — no one’s favourite and an acquired taste, but a sweet treat nonetheless.
At the start of this year, Wonka was considered by most pundits to be a movie release of such significance, that it was in the same must-see category as Barbie and Oppenheimer.
No surprise, really, given the film features Timothee Chalamet, whose star is burning so brightly right now he can date Kylie Jenner without living in her shadow.
The film, which is directed by Paul King of the excellent Paddington movies, is set decades before the events of the 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s iconic Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.
It’s important to make that distinction because Chalamet plays Willy Wonka as a precursor to the 1971 Gene Wilder version, rather than Tim Burton’s, who was brought to the screen in 2005 by Johnny Depp.
Wonka finds young Willy arriving in a big city with a dream to change the world, one chocolate at a time, but he must overcome opposition from an unscrupulous chocolate cartel, who have the chief of police (Keegan-Michael Key) in their choc-filled pocket.
The point of the prequel, then, is to reveal how this budding and hopelessly optimistic young chocolatier turns into Wilder’s Wonka, a low-key sadist, who tortures ungrateful children, Squid Game style, in a factory that occupational health and safety forgot.
So, right away, you know the tone here is going to be much closer to the charming, family-friendly confection of Paddington than the previous two films, which had unsettling undertones, including but not limited to the Oompa Loompas, who Dahl originally conceived as African slaves.
But King’s film veers so far from problematic territory (Key in a fat suit notwithstanding), that it often lacks an edge to cut the sweetness.
Chalamet, though, is fantastic in the titular role, and gets great support from a who’s who of British comedy, including Oscar-winner Olivia Colman, as Wonka’s dastardly landlord; Rowan Atkinson, who plays a priest corrupted by a chocolate addiction; and Hugh Grant as the film’s sole Oompa Loompa.
Colman, Atkinson and Grant are scene-stealers and deserved more screentime, and one wishes King cut a few decidedly average musical numbers — despite Chalamet’s lovely singing voice — to facilitate that.
The songs, BTW, were written by Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon, who penned the theme song for Father Ted, but can’t hold a candle to modern masters of the musical, such as Lin-Manuel Miranda and La La Land’s Pasek and Paul.
The film would also benefit from fewer characters because it gets a bit muddled with Wonka’s mates in the wash house, a chocolate cartel and local law enforcement all competing for plot points.
Perfectly aimed at younger audiences, Wonka will likely disappoint people who love Burton’s take, but it may receive lukewarm support from those who (rightly) consider Wilder’s iteration the best.
Talking about Wilder, Chalamet’s rendition of Pure Imagination is a lovely nostalgic way to close the film, even if it does make the musical shortcomings of the new film more obvious.
RATING
⭐⭐⭐