Wonka

MOVIE #1,333 • 🍿🍿 • 01.30.24 This movie is a mess. Putting aside that it’s a terrible idea, it’s simply not well-executed. I mostly like Chalamet but he’s so wrong for the role: half doing an extremely bad Gene Wilder impersonation and half doing his normal charming “I’m Timothée Chalamet, handsome man” thing. That’s the problem with attempting something like this: Wilder is simply too good to replicate and if you try to do something new (paging Mr. Depp) it’s probably gonna be met with ridicule regardless of whether or not it’s bad or good. But again, somehow far worse than those immovable hurdles is the plain fact that this screenplay is atrocious and I personally found it uninteresting / unimaginative visually. The central conflict revolves around the idea that Wonka didn’t read the fine print of a hotel contract (which isn’t a thing!) that forces him into a life of indentured servitude (which he immediately escapes from anyway).

There are also several lame deus ex machinas that left me scratching my head. The simple idea of set-up/pay-off is nowhere to be found. The best part of the movie was Keegan-Michael Key’s character/subplot whose only joke is that he progressively gets fatter because he can’t stop eating chocolate. My low expectations apparently weren’t low enough. 2/10

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Wonka is a 2023 musical fantasy film directed by Paul King, who co-wrote the screenplay with Simon Farnaby based on a story by King. It tells the origin story of Willy Wonka, a character in the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, featuring his early days as a chocolatier. It stars Timothée Chalamet as the title character, with an ensemble cast including Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Olivia Colman, and Hugh Grant. It is the third live-action film based on Dahl's novel, following Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). It was released on October 24, 2023.