Origin and release year: United States (2023 – Wonka)

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson, Olivia Colman, Calah Lane, Tom Davis, Keegan-Michael Key, Matt Lucas, Sally Hawkins, Paterson Joseph, Rakhee Thakrar, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Natasha Rothwell, Jim Carter, Tracy Ifeachor

Director: Paul King

Screenwriter: Paul King, Simon Farnaby

Synopsis: With dreams of opening a shop in a city renowned for its chocolate, a young and poor Willy Wonka discovers that the industry is run by a cartel of greedy chocolatiers. (IMDb)

Firstly, let’s get the elephant out of the room… This writer is personally not a fan of musicals, except maybe Mamma Mia!, the Disney originals from the earlier 2000s, and The Sound of Music. So, from the perspective of a musical-tolerator (not a musical-lover) there were just too many random singalong moments. It almost felt as if they were trying to fill the lack of depth up with musical tunes. More on that later…

Although Wonka wasn’t boring or bad, it was just good. Nothing spectacular or to write home about.

Out of the three films in the Wonka universe, this one was good but didn’t leave as strong an impression as the others.

On that note… Although it’s a prequel, it would’ve been nice to see more points of connection with the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (both the movie by Tim Burton and original book by Roald Dahl) part of the Wonka world/universe that we are most familiar with besides, you know, eating chocolate… All that we got was one oompa loompa (brilliantly acted by Hugh Grant, by the way) and a glimpse at the chocolate factory at the end, but it would’ve been nice to have little story motifs that we could giggle at linking to the nostalgia of the previous movies we’ve seen. You know like a hint and glimpse into the future for the movie we remember most recently?

Despite this opinion, we have to give props to Timothée Chalamet’s interpretation of Willy Wonka because he really brought the character’s childlike nature to life. He emulated Gene Wilder’s interpretation of Wonka’s character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factotry to the tee. The story did well in tapping into that part of the Wonka universe as they even emulated some completely similar scenes.

However, the movie did still seem a little bit surface level. We got the link to Wonka’s mother who made him fond of chocolate in the first place but somehow it felt like we needed stronger motivation. Maybe because the idea of his mother ‘being there’ for him if he succeeds when she’s very clearly in a better place simply seems… farfetched. It would’ve been nicer to have a more tangible motivation that another character doesn’t have to say, “You didn’t actually believe that, did you?” to. That might’ve been part of what broke the film’s magic.

Despite it all, the film is fun and a great watch, especially as a family film. Wonka’s friendship with Noodle (played by Calah Lane) contributes hugely to that.

The feel-good world of magic and chocolate will put your mind at ease for an easy watch when you need a happiness boost.

What did you think of Wonka? Let us know in the comments!