Wonka [2023]
“A good chocolate should be simple.
- Whereas this, it's just…
— Weird.”
Brought to us by the same team behind the Paddington films, 2023’s Wonka carries much of the same pacing, style, flaccid saccharine nonsense, and ludicrously high review scores that accompany those as well. The irony of opening this review with a quote from the villains who are specifically trying to destroy Wonka, and likely don’t understand his sense of wonder… is not lost on me. What is lost on me, however, is how this is getting any sort of critical acclaim when there’s so little to like about it.
When aspiring chocolatier and magician, Willy Wonka, finds himself amongst the best in the business, its time for his vision of a sweeter world to shine. Those already occupying the top spots, however, have other ideas. Can this nobody with a dream truly make a chocolaty splash, or will he simply melt away?
Wonka is a movie for families. Specifically, families with children. Vaguely better than 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Wonka is a delight for those with a pallet for sweets… and nothing else. “Cloying” is almost too weak a word to describe what sitting through all 114-minutes of this cavity conundrum feels like, and a quick Google of synonyms provides a list of things that get much closer:
Become sickening
Become tiresome
Become tedious
”Sickening” only in the sense that too much of any one thing will make you sick, but “tiresome” and “tedious” because the film hits a single poorly autotuned note very early on, and holds it for the entire runtime. It’s not that Wonka is entirely without substance, but it is entirely without purpose or justification for existing… or being so tremendously long. On our way out of the theater I said, “This was an 87-minute movie stretched out over 2-hours,” and the more I thought about what to write in this review, the more apt that continued to feel. The film features a host of characters that we never learn more than one or two things about, a plot that doesn’t have any real mysteries or depths, and a soundtrack that feels like it was pulled off a royalty free SoundCloud account. Names that I recognize with zero reconnoitering flood the screen in this production — Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Sally Hawkins, Jim Carter, Keegan-Michael Key, etc. — and are essentially thrown away with lame dialogue, horrendous musical numbers, and cheap visual effects. The entire movie looks cheap, sounds cheap, and feels cheap with impressively bad audio dubbing/ mixing during the songs [which are also all a waste of time], CGI more at home in a Disney Channel Original Movie than the silver screen, and jokes that are not only not funny, but borderline offensive, and jejune attempts to elicit laughs at best.
If I had to sum all of 2023’s family “comedy”, Wonka, into a single word, it would be: “Cringe”.
Writing purely negative reviews isn’t something I enjoy, but it’s difficult to find shining moments to speak of when it comes to this nutty bar of stale quips. It’s got a sort of sticky, oily feel to it that doesn’t sit quite right in the mouth, and is difficult to get rid of. It’s simultaneously energetic and lethargic — continuously telling you that you’re having a good time with its bright colors and constant songs, but leaving you catatonic and wandering because there’s simply nothing to grasp onto. Nothing really sticks from its awkward characters that so obviously and desperately want to be from the same universe as Matilda, but don’t have the charm, depth, or intrigue to be anything more than a shoddy watercolor image on a thick, cardboard page of a toddlers bedtime story. 2023’s Wonka is a “nothing” movie in the worst sort of way.
Unless I missed something and “ha ha, look at the fat man,” is funny again here in 2023/ 24, there’s simply no reason to imbibe any part of Paul King and Simon Farnaby’s puerile attempt at childlike glee or depicting the power of following your dreams. Gone is all the charm and madness of the original film; here replaced with cheap attempts at comedy, flimsy storytelling that leaves you little more than wanting, and a pointlessly long runtime that stretches an already hardening taffy far beyond its breaking point.
“Every good thing in this world, started with a dream. So you hold on to yours.”
